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Information Tribunal Made Permanent Under President’s Supervision Re-shaping and embracing institutions to monitor and supervise the mass media. President Yeltsin has transformed the once-temporary Information Arbitration Tribunal into a permanent fixture within his administrative apparatus. In so doing, he has broadened its agenda to include, among other new duties, the guaranteeing of objectivity and the morality of children’s programming, as well as the issuing of warnings to mass media outlets. The Tribunal was created in late October to supervise the use of mass media during the December 12th election campaign [the Regulations establishing it were reproduced in No. 2 of this newsletter]. Yeltsin has concluded that the Tribunal, which issued about a dozen decisions, played a constructive role and gained “positive experience” in a new and difficult electoral process. In a December 31st decree, Yeltsin placed the body directly under his administration and endowed it with a new name—“Sudebnaia palata po informatsionnym sporam pri Prezidente Rossiiskoi Federatsii”—which we translate as the Presidential Judicial Chamber for Information Disputes. The Chamber, we believe, will have jurisdiction over all mass media including independent broadcasters and the press. Its predecessor, the Tribunal, issued opinions concerning newspapers and nothing in the language of the December 31st decree appears to limit its scope to a particular medium or to state entities. The decree named seven members to the new Chamber, five of whom served on the nine-member Tribunal: Law Professor Anatoli Vengerov, who continues to serve as Chairman; Igor Yeremin, a member of the Mass Media Committee of the former Supreme Soviet, who will serve as Deputy Chairman; Aleksandr Kopeyka, also a member of the Mass Media Committee of the Regional (Northwestern Russia, including the City of St. Petersburg) State Inspectorate for Defense of Freedom of the Press and Mass Information of the Russian Federation; and Marian Panyarskaya, a law student at the Mass Communications School in Moscow. The two new members of the Chamber are Yuri Feofanov, legal affairs commentator for Izvestiia and editor of the journal Zakon (“Law”), and Igor Ivanov, chief specialist of the Central Electoral Commission’s department for electoral arbitration and preparation of normative documents. Tribunal members who were not named to the new Chamber are: Aleksei Simonov, Vladimir Sukhomlinov, Aleksei Voinov, and Anatoli Yezhelev. The Chamber will have a broader range of responsibilities than its predecessor and its role will be multi-faceted, although the December 31st decree is silent as to the Chamber’s powers of enforcement. When it was formed pursuant to the October 29 Regulations on Information Guarantees and the Election Campaign, the Tribunal’s scope of responsibility was limited to the December 12th parliamentary election campaign: the resolution of disputes arising from violations by editors, journalists, moderators, candidates and electoral commissions of the Regulations. Under Article 30 of the Regulations, the Tribunal received authority to make recommendations on improvements in mass media campaign coverage and content of partisan campaign material, consider complaints against broadcasting companies and journalists, provide explanations regarding application of the Regulations, and present expert findings to courts of law on matters arising out of the Tribunal’s consideration of complaints submitted to it. In early November, Tribunal chairman Anatoli Vengerov characterized the Tribunal as not a juridical but an “ethical-legal structure” which would use public opinion as its primary weapon. In contrast, the duties assigned to the new Chamber in Yeltsin’s December 31st decree suggest that the Chamber will expand upon its former activities to assume a number of new functions. Some of the Chamber’s activities will combine investigation and decision-making, such as the guaranteeing of objectivity and authenticity in news reports, and the more closely-defined correction of factual errors—functions which are reminiscent of those assigned to the controversial supervisory councils established last summer by the Supreme Soviet. Some decision-making functions will mix elements of adjudication and policy determination, such as the resolution of disputes about allocation of broadcast air time between parliamentary factions and the guaranteeing of pluralism in broadcast news and public affairs programs. Still others will involve the Chamber in norm creation, such as the protection of the moral interests of children and adolescents. Other new duties of the Chamber will incorporate elements from the Russian Constitutional Court (suspended from mid-October to mid-January) and the soon-to-be disbanded Ministry of Press and Information. For example, the Chamber will presumably be called upon to issue advisory opinions on matters which may include constitutional interpretation. The December 31st decree cites Article 29 of the new Russian constitution (which in subsection 4 guarantees citizens the right to “seek, receive, transfer, produce and disseminate information by any lawful means”) and specifies as one of the Chamber’s duties the rendering of assistance to the President in “upholding rights and freedoms in the mass information sphere.” Finally, in performing at least one of its designated duties—the issuance of warnings to mass media outlets under Article 16 of the Law on Mass Media—the Chamber will approach the role of prosecutor. It is in this function, inherited from the Ministry of Press and Information (slated for dissolution in February) that the Chamber’s standing as an impartial arbiter will perhaps most severely be tested. Under Article 16, the Ministry’s issuance of written warnings to a media outlet concerning alleged violations of Aricle 4 of the Mass Media Law (“Inadmissibility of misuse of the freedom of mass information”) is the essential pre-condition for court-ordered termination of the mass media otulet’s activity. Although the Decmeber 31st decree does not explicityly say so, it must be assumed that the new Chamber—given the power to issue warnings—will also inherit the Ministry’s power under Article 16 to seek a court order terminating an outlet’s activity. Will the Chamber use this considrable power to enhance its overall enforcment authority in order to sanction broadcasters and publishers who engage in activities unfavoratble to the administartion, as well as the specific acts prohibited by Article 4? Will the Chamber find itself applying Article 16 to limit coverage, for example, of political opponents such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky? It is noteworthy that among its resolutions during the Decmebr 12th electoral campaign, the Tribunal charged Zhirinovsky with “repeatedly” on December 6th and 7th making announcements which “stirred national differences and incited violations of human rights,” and December 8 making televised statements which were inteded to “not only stir up national hatred, but intergovernmental conflicts as well, and to provoke a civil war.” The Tribunal resolution added that Zhirinovsky and others “allowed themselves to insult the President and other government officials, and openly defied other generally accepted ethical norms.” At the same time, the Tribunal on December 17th upheld Zhirinovsky’s complaint that Ostankino’s election eveshowing of the documentary of “The Hawk” was unlawful. There is nothing in the December 31st decree to suggest that the Chamber will operate as an independent judicial organ. The decree states that the Chmaber will be “attached to” the President and will not be part of the Russian Federation’s federal court system. In addition, in establishing the Chamber’s secretariat as a “working apparatus” within the President’s administartion, the decree assigns to the Presidnet’s chief of staff the responsibility of approving the structure and size of the secretariat. Thus, the jobs (or at least salaries) of Chamber administrative personnel will be dependent on the allocation of the President’s budge. It should also be noted that Chairman Vengerov has expressed his agreement with yeltsin’s broad cosntitutional goals. He appeared on national television immediately after the December 12th election, welcoming the adoption of the new constitution. In an interview last May, Vengerov, who was cited as an expert who took part in prepartion of an earlier draft constitution establishing strong presidential authority, spoke of the need for such provisions, stating that “Russia has always needed strong executive authority at major turning points in its history.” In sum, given its broad mandate in the December 31st decree, the Presidential Judicial Chamber for Information Disputes may be expected to play a major role in the evolution of mass edia law and policy in Russia. In so doing, the Chamber will probably soon face the dilemma of seeking to serve the President’s interest and at the same time mainiting respect as an impartial authority. While giving Yeltsin more direct influence over the Chamber’s activities, the move creates the risk of destroying the Chamber’s credibility as an impartial decision-maker. Peter Krug |
Last Updated: 11/20/99 |
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© 1999 Post-Soviet Media Law &
Policy Newsletter |
