Newsroom
OSCE Mission welcomes adoption of Serbian Public Information Act
BELGRADE 23 April 2003
BELGRADE, 23 April 2003 - The Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro, Ambassador Maurizio Massari, today warmly congratulated both the Serbian Assembly and Government for the adoption of the Public Information Act.
The new act is a coherent legal text that successfully balances important principles and rights, such as freedom of expression, prohibition of censorship, responsibility in the domain of public information, ban on monopoly, free access to information, special rights for journalists in pursuance of their professional tasks, protection of privacy rights, and others.
"The fact that this very important piece of media legislation was passed with a large majority of MPs, belonging to various political groupings, shows that there is broad support for moving the reform agenda forward in the media field," Ambassador Massari said.
Adopting the Act is also an important move in the direction of standards set out in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, insofar as the Act represents a cardinal step forward in defining both rights and responsibilities with regard to information.
"Now that we have this law, there must be a concerted effort to implements it in full. To do this, there is a need for all stakeholders, including the authorities, media owners and journalists to live up to the responsibilities as well as exercising the rights enshrined in the law," said Massari.
He added that the OSCE Mission remained firmly committed to helping expand media freedom in Serbia, in line with internationally accepted standards and principles. In the name of the Mission he appealed to authorities concerned to complete the reform process. This would entail the rapid passage of other much-needed pieces of media legislation, such as the Access to Information Bill and the Telecommunications Bill.
The new act is a coherent legal text that successfully balances important principles and rights, such as freedom of expression, prohibition of censorship, responsibility in the domain of public information, ban on monopoly, free access to information, special rights for journalists in pursuance of their professional tasks, protection of privacy rights, and others.
"The fact that this very important piece of media legislation was passed with a large majority of MPs, belonging to various political groupings, shows that there is broad support for moving the reform agenda forward in the media field," Ambassador Massari said.
Adopting the Act is also an important move in the direction of standards set out in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, insofar as the Act represents a cardinal step forward in defining both rights and responsibilities with regard to information.
"Now that we have this law, there must be a concerted effort to implements it in full. To do this, there is a need for all stakeholders, including the authorities, media owners and journalists to live up to the responsibilities as well as exercising the rights enshrined in the law," said Massari.
He added that the OSCE Mission remained firmly committed to helping expand media freedom in Serbia, in line with internationally accepted standards and principles. In the name of the Mission he appealed to authorities concerned to complete the reform process. This would entail the rapid passage of other much-needed pieces of media legislation, such as the Access to Information Bill and the Telecommunications Bill.