Slovakia

[SK] Amendment of the Act on Broadcasting and Retransmission of 2000

IRIS 2002-7:1/29

Eleonora Bobáková

Department of International Relations Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission Slovakia

In March 2002 the zákon o vysielaní a retransmisii (Act on Broadcasting and Retransmission of 2000) was amended by zákon c. 206/2002 (Act No. 206/2002), which came into force on 8 May 2002.

The amendments mainly concern the legal status of the Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission as now being entitled to impose fines for breaches of provisions concerning programmes and commercials without a warning only in defined cases: "The Council can impose a fine without prior warning, if the obligation pursuant to Art. 16 letter c) (Breach of the rules covering elections), Art. 19 (Protection of human dignity and humanity), Art. 20 (Protection of minors) sections 1 and 3, Art. 30 (Breach of the right to short report (pursuant to the list of major events), red.) was violated, as well as in cases of broadcasting without permission (Art. 2 par. 1 letter b) or in cases of retransmission without authorisation (Art. 2 par. 1 letter c)."

Furthermore a new section 6 to Art. 64 of the Act on Broadcasting and Retransmission shall ensure a more transparent procedure in the case of an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic against a fine imposed by the Council of Broadcasting and Retransmission. The duration of the appellate procedure in the Court will not be included into the one-year's term for the Council to decide the case (Art. 64 section 3: "(3) The sanction may be imposed within six months from the day on which the Council has learnt about the breach of the obligation pursuant to paragraph 1, but not later than one year from the date of the breach.") Before this amendment there were two cases rejected for exceeding the one-year period.