Albania

[AL] Changes on the Law for Radio and Television

IRIS 2003-4:1/7

Hamdi Jupe

Albanian Media Monitoring Center

On 20 February 2003 the Parliament of Albania approved changes to the Law No. 8410 of 30 September 1998 "On public and private radio and television in the Republic of Albania" (see IRIS 2003-3: 9 and IRIS 1999-2: 11).

According to the amendment of article 7 no. 19 of Law No. 8410, the Parliament is allowed to approve the Annual Report of the Keshilli Kombetar i Radiotelevizionit (National Council on Radio and Television - NCRT, state authority responsible for the licensing of private radio and television) by a simple majority of the votes. As to the former situation, the Parliament needed to have a majority of 2/3 of the votes to pass the NCRT's report, which has to be presented at the beginning of the year and contains the description of its activity and of the situation of electronic media in Albania. The NCRTaccording to Art. 7 no. 19 - must be suspended immediately, if the Parliament does not adopt the report for two years in succession, and a new Council has to be elected by Parliament.

In 2002 the Albanian Parliament did not adopt the Council's Annual Report for 2001 and recently the Council presented its report for the year 2002.