THE MEDIA DARKNESS

AIM, ZAGREB, September 29, 1996

The ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) has still not recovered from the shock it experienced because of the acquittal of the journalists of "Feral Tribune", which it tried to absorb by not allowing television broadcasting of this piece of news, when only a day later, on Friday, a new blow came. The draft bill on Public Communications got only 58 votes in the House of Representatives, 26 delegates were against and one abstained, which was not enough to pass this extremely important and controversial law. Namely, being the so called organic law, according to the Constitution it requires a majority vote of 127 delegates to be adopted. However, the bullying and self-confident HDZ, which has as much as 73 delegates in this House and several "independent" ones, overlooked this "detail" and too many of them went away for the weekend.

How sure the HDZ was that the draft law will pass is also attested to by the fact that even the President's Internal Policy Advisor Dr.Ivic Pasalic did not know of this constitutional catch, although had he only read the explanation he would have known that the Constitutional Court had abolished the previous law because it was adopted by a simple majority back in 1992. Practically never had such a panic spread within the HDZ ranks so that even one of the authors of the Constitution and Vice-President of the Assembly, Vladimir Seks, demanded from Dr. Vlatko Pavletic, President of the Assembly, to promulgate the Law and anyone wanting to refute it should address the Constitutional Court. Seks, who obviously had a bad day, claimed that Croatia needed the Law to be admitted to the Council of Europe and that there was no other way out.

The lost HDZ's members, and particularly Seks, who is incidentally also the author of the Rules of Procedure of House of Representatives, were saved by Mato Arlovic, president of the SDP Deputy Club, who explained that the voting could be repeated at the request of 20 delegates. After this Pavletic decided to interrupt the session, and to continue it on Wednesday October 2, when the Law on Public Communications would be finally adopted.

However, there is a question whether the HDZ has learned a lesson and whether on Wednesday, two days after the deadline set by the Constitutional Court, the same text that was refuted on Friday would be adopted or whether someone in the Government would finally realize that something had to be changed. What was actually questionable and why did not the opposition raise its hands?

According to the number of amendments submitted by the HSLS, HSS, SDP, IDS and HND, which the HDZ voting machine flatly rejected, many things were questionable, starting from the title since no one explained why was it entitled the Law on "public communications" and not "information" when the term information appears 76 times in the text. The Government accepted numerous suggestions of the Croatian Journalistic Society, the opposition and experts of the Council of Europe, particularly in the part explaining in which cases a publisher shall not be held liable for paying indemnification. Thus, it is stipulated that a publisher shall not be liable for compensating the damages, although it is common knowledge that this was one of the ways in which independent and opposition papers were stifled when "injurious information represented a precise and full report of the debate at a session of a public authority or at a public gathering".

Previously this applied to only "public authorities", so that it could be deduced that journalists were allowed to report from sessions of the Assembly, Government, courts, etc. Now, the damages do not have to be compensated in case of an authorized interview, if the information is based on truthful facts, but also on "facts that are not true, but the author had justifiable reasons to believe them to be true and has acted in good faith", and if the "controversial information represent author's value judgments whose publication is in the public interest and if they are conveyed in good faith".

Precisely the changes of the mentioned Article of the Law are the most important ones and represent a major improvement of the previous legal text on the basis of which absurd court rulings were passed by which newspapers have been fined for giving a fair report on a press conference of a political party.

On the other hand however, the mover tried to compensate for such leniency by a provision unknown in any democratic society, so that Article 19 specifies: "Before starting a newspaper or some other printed medium, a publisher shall be obliged to insure himself against the responsibility for the damages he might inflict on a third person by an information published in a public newspaper". Also, Article 47 stipulates: "Within 30 days as of the date of entry of this Law into force publishers shall conclude contracts on the insurance against liability from Article 19 of this Law".

Many opposition deputies warned that this meant the introduction of censorship, that this was an attempt to destroy small publishers, to silence independent and opposition media, etc. They wanted to know how much will the insurance cost a "Globus" or a "Feral Tribune", and who will be the one to decide the amount of the premium? The Croatian Journalistic Society was forced to interfere because of this provision, as Miroslav Separovic, Justice Minister, falsely claimed that the Society had nothing against such a solution. Mato Arlovic was the one to expose the absurdity of government's proposal warning that it was in contravention of the Law on Insurance Companies adopted by that same Assembly, according to which newspaper and other information houses could not and may not be insured.

But, the HDZ members as if hard of hearing, if they listen at all, and whose duty is to support what the Government proposes, failed to understand and blamed the opposition for not passing the Law. Ivica Racan replied that such HDZ behaviour was not patriotic, while their accusations against the opposition were an expression of impotence and insanity. The SDP President added that his party would not vote in favour of the Law if the amendment on the abolishment of compulsory insurance was not accepted, and that they had demonstrated their good will by giving up the other proposals. "I bet, - stated Racan, - that in case the Law is adopted in its present form on Wednesday, already in few months we shall again discuss its changes. When the first paper stops coming out or a television station stops broadcasting on the basis of the provisions of this Law I am sure it will raise dust in Croatia, but in Europe too".

Vladimir Seks insisted that the Law should be proclaimed adopted, although everyone knew that it was not so, and all that, allegedly, for the sake of pleasing Europe, while it did not bother him that the Law included stipulations unknown to Europe. Then it wouldn't be a bad idea to ask whether Croatia really wanted to join Europe, since some deputies claimed that Europe should learn from us. Will this be an opportunity for the HDZ to admit its mistake and accept rational warnings of the opposition will be seen already on Tuesday when representatives of all parliamentary parties are supposed to meet in order to reach some sort of consensus. It also remains to be seen whether a hard, anti-democratic and anti-European line will outnumber the others and manage to impose on Wednesday the Croatian patent for the annihilation of unfit media.

And that the Government is not ready to accept the European standards is also attested by the draft bill on the protection of secret information which defines state, military and official secrets. Instead of the dismissed Council for the Protection of the Freedom of Public Information the law establishes a Council for the Confirmation of Secrecy, to be composed of four delegates and three journalists, and to which the journalists could complain if some institution refuses to give them information. However, the proof that this is but another decoration of democracy are provisions which stipulate that the decisions of the Council shall not be binding, but that it will rather prepare guidelines, information and advice. This law will undoubtedly also result in the same and similar disagreements, since according to it a secret is anything someone proclaims it to be one, as for example a court ruling that Tudjman has lost his suit against "Feral".

Naturally, basic journalistic ethics and professionalism are here in question. But, it is not insignificant that despite the fact that it controls the most powerful medium, the HDZ wants to destroy the small ones too. As an illustration, let us remind that in 1989 160 million copies of dailies were sold in Croatia, while in 1993 one hundred million less. Seven years ago the market swallowed over 50 million copies of weeklies, and in 1993 only 20 million. All this points to the extent to which the influence of television has grown. But now the unsuitable papers, those truly tiny sparkles in the HDZ media darkness, are also to be extinguished.

GOJKO MARINKOVIC