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The Constitutional Court of Romania ruled on 12 July 2017 that some articles of the modified version of the Law no. 41/1994 on the functioning of the Romanian public radio and television services are not constitutional. The Court reacted to a complaint of unconstitutionality lodged by the National Liberal Party and the Popular Movement Party (opposition) (see inter alia IRIS 2013-5/37, IRIS 2013-10/36, IRIS 2014-1/38, IRIS 2014-2/30, IRIS 2014-4/25, IRIS 2014-6/30, IRIS 2014-7/30, IRIS 2015-6/33, IRIS 2015-8/26, IRIS 2016-5/28, IRIS 2017-3/26). The Court declared unconstitutional the provisions...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in a case against Romania, has confirmed the strong protection of the right to freedom of expression to be guaranteed to statements by journalists made within the context of a lively debate in a television show on a matter of public interest. Ms Predescu, an investigative journalist, complained of a violation of her right to freedom of expression. She appeared on a television show on a national television channel together with the Mayor of Constanţa, R.M., to discuss certain violent incidents that had taken place in Mamaia, a seaside resort on the...

On 27 April 2016, the Government of Romania adopted the Emergency Government Decree no. 33/2017 for the modification and completion of Article 11 of the Government Decree no. 22/2009 on the establishment of the National Authority for Administration and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM - the telecom watchdog) (see IRIS 2009-5/31 and IRIS 2010-7/31). According to the new version of Article 11(1), the management of ANCOM is provided by a president and two vice presidents, proposed by the government and appointed by the plenary of the parliament, with the majority of the present MPs. A new paragraph...

On 13 April 2017, the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, promulgated the organic Law no. 66/2017 for the repealing of Article 29^1 of the Audiovisual Law no. 504/2002, with further modifications and completions. The above-mentioned article referred to the acquisition of television advertising space. Law no. 66/2017 was published in the Official Journal of Romania no. 273/19.04.2017 (see IRIS 2016-10/24). The law was unanimously adopted by the Senate (upper chamber of the Romanian Parliament) on 20 March 2017 and had previously been adopted by the Chamber of Deputies (lower chamber) on 15 June...

The Consiliul Naţional al Audiovizualului (National Audiovisual Council - CNA) imposed fines worth 1,167,500 lei (~EUR 259,400) in 2016 for breaches of the audiovisual rules (see inter alia IRIS 2008-5/27, IRIS 2009-1/29, IRIS 2010-8/42, IRIS 2011-1/44, IRIS 2011-6/31, IRIS 2012-1/39, IRIS 2012-4/36). According to the CNA 2016 Annual Report, unanimously adopted on 4 April 2017, the Council imposed 176 sanctions last year, of which 42 fines, 133 public warnings, and a decision to broadcast the text of the sanction for 10 minutes. Most sanctions were imposed for breaches of the legal framework with...