Georgia

[UA][GE] Wrap-up Report on the TACIS Project

IRIS 1995-10:1/19

Volker Kreutzer

Institute of European Media Law (EMR), Saarbrücken/Brussels

In its wrap-up report on the TACIS project "Free Press in the Democratic State" the European Academy in Berlin has published the results of a study carried out between December 1994 and September 1995 on the state of media in the Ukraine and Georgia. Journalist associations and scientific institutes from both countries took part in the project along with the Institute for Politics and Public Affairs in Amsterdam. One of the main questions at the outset was to find out whether media and press legislation were forcing the creation of independent media as an indispensable part of democracy. The report draws the conclusion, among other practical recommendations, that the legal context for journalistic work in Georgia and the Ukraine has to be improved. The free circulation of information within society must be promoted first and foremost without infringing on privacy legislation. An important factor here would be that basic freedom and rights must be recoverable before independent courts. It is considered that the starting point to achieve this lies both within the Georgian constitution and the Ukrainian press legislation but that the recently created legal context has to prove itself in practice.