CROATIAN JOURNALISTS WRITING LAWS

AIM Zagreb, June 16, 1996

The Croatian Journalists' Society, half of whose members President Tudjman says are enemies, at one of the numerous fronts it holds with the Government and the authorities, signed a truce a few days ago. More precisely, the leadership of the journalists' organization has abandoned the intention to send its own draft law on public information into the Assembly procedure, because the Government adopted almost all the comments of the journalists. What had happened in fact was that the journalists had decided to draw up their own draft law, having assessed that the text of the law offered by the Ministry of Justice was below the level of democracy, protection and promotion of freedom of information ensured by the equivocal law from 1992. Certain provisions of the initial draft which essentially contained the old solutions, were even more restrictive and rigid than those included in the law suspended by the Constitutional Court on account of an appeal of the journalist Denis Kuljis, because it had not been adopted by a qualified majority of the Assembly.

However, the sudden turn and the first large journalists' victory occurred after their representatives had been invited to a session of Government coordinating committee for internal policy where they were given the opportunity to present their stands. On the occasion, assistant prime minister Dr Ljerka Mintas-Hodak and minister of justice Miroslav Separovic not only adopted journalists' amendments, but even promised that when the draft arrived to the assembly for adoption, they would also try to introduce the remaining stands which have not been adopted. That is how it came about that just a single, and not two draft laws appeared last week in front of the deputies, and got a favourable mark from the Assembly.

What have the journalists accomplished, that is, what did the Government agree to accept? A lot that had so many times before in court led to absurd situations, and what journalists and journals had been punished for even when they wrote the truth. For instance, now an interview is defined as "a conversation or a statement in writing or stated by word of mouth with the intention to be published", and authorization is defined as an "approval for publication given in writing or verbally". This definition makes all media, written and electronic ones, equal, and on the other hand, the practice according to which a journalist had to obtain an authorization in writing from the interviewed person in order to publish it was abandoned, which was a completely unknown practice in the developed world. While adopting this proposal of the journalists, Mrs Ljerka Mintas-Hodak observed that in this way the politicians would also be forced to take care what they were saying, because thy would have to assume that everything they said to a journalist could be published. Another article of the draft law introduced responsibility of sources of information, and the provision that texts of non-journalists would be treated in the same manner as those written by journalists.

The law also defines privacy differently and reduces it only to "personal and family life of citizens", but when speaking of public workers, they "are entitled to protection of privacy, except in cases which are not in connection with their public activity". In this way, tragicomical situations will be avoided, such as the one when a president of a hunters' society won a litigation against a journalist who had written about his malversations because the court assessed that he was not a public figure.

The most important change is the one which "frees the publisher of responsibility for damage if the information which inflicted the damage is an accurate and complete report from a dispute at a session of a public government agency or a public gathering, and its sense was not changed by an editor's intervention". Journalists have been fighting for this definition for four years now, but they had always been flatly refused, although even the former prime minister Valentic had promised to amend the law in this sense. The law used to read only "from a dispute at a session of public authorities", which practically meant that a journalist was allowed to write without consequences only the truth from sesseions of the Assembly, district or municipal assemblies, court, government and similar. This article of the former law led to all kinds of unbelievable situations, as illustrated by the example of the journal Vjesnik, which was fined because it precisely retold a press conference of a political party. According to this old solution, a journalist would not, in fact, be allowed to report even from a convention of the ruling HDZ, nor carry a speech of Mr Tudjman, because if he insulted somebody, and this is a custom of his, the journal, radio or television would have to pay the fine.

The new law offered the deputies two alternatives - an editorial staff "shall" or "may" have a statute, and the editor-in-chief is selected with or without agremeent of the staff. Some unclarified doubts have remained about compensation of nonmaterial damage, publication of corrections and similar, but it must be admitted that Croatian journalists have met with so far unexpected cooperativeness of the authorities. They are, of course, aware that the authorites have not done it out of fear, but because it was in their interest to adopt as democratic a law as possible, especially as another argument to be accepted into the Council of Europe. They are also aware that the HDZ and Mr Tudjman are not giving in, because everything that is written in the law on information can be thrown to the dogs if things such as reforms of criminal code continue, such as the one pursuant to which Viktor Ivancic and Marinko Culic from Feral Tribune are sued, or the editor of Nacional Ivo Pukanic.

That is why the journalists'organization sent two porposals to the Constitutional Court for assessment of constitutionality. The first one refers to the law on protection of the five highest state officials, and the other to betrayal of state and military secrets. Although satisfaction was expressed that the authorities have accepted journalists' amendments of the law on public information, Croatian journalists are aware that the problems had never been caused by the law itself but by judicial practice, and that the real test of democracy will be the destiny of their constitutional appeals.

The journalists are expected to write another law and lodge another complaint soon. The law would refer to the so-called free journalists, which is in Croatian circumstances, mildly speaking, a sarcastic translation of the English term "free lancer". These "free" journalists are "freed" of everything, even of the right to work, and they have no legal protection. Journalists will not seek privileges such as the ones given to artists by a recently adopted law, who will have health and pension contributions paid for them, but only those selected by the minister, but the journalists will not accept the present status either, because they pay 400 marks a month only for the health and social insurance, and the taxes are so high that out of 100 earned kunas, only 10 is theirs. The complaint will refer to the taxes, because by adopting various international conventions, Croatia has in fact agreed that taxes on fees cannot exceed 15 to 25 per cent, and cannot be 40 per cent as now.

It is still a long way to Europe.

GOJKO MARINKOVIC