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In December 2008, the Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media (Flemish Regulator for the Media - monitoring and enforcement of media regulation) issued several interesting decisions. Two of them will be addressed below. Firstly, the Algemene Kamer (General Chamber) condemned the commercial broadcasting corporation SBS Belgium for a triple breach of the so-called “20 minutes rule” during the broadcasting of the programme “Lost”. This rule, described in Article 101 § 5 of the Omroepdecreet (Flemish Decree on Radio-broadcasting and Television), requires a period of at least twenty minutes to intervene between...

The Parliament of the Republic of Slovenia passed into law the new Penal Code (Kazenski zakonik KZ-1) on 20 May 2008, which came into force on 1 November 2008. The new provision on pornography, child pornography, and sexual exploitation of children in commercial sex performances (Article no. 176) changes substantially the previous legislative concepts in this field. The most outstanding amendment of the provision refers to the juridical treatment of the possession of child pornography. Possession is now punishable without being conditional on the intention of the possessor to produce and/or disseminate...

The Broadcasting Authority had, in 2007, amended its Requirements as to Standards and Practice Applicable to Participation in Media Programmes of Vulnerable Persons so as to prohibit, inter alia, programmes aimed at establishing the identity of the natural parents of children, including adopted ones. Moreover, programmes or parts thereof relating to adoption have to be aired after the 9 p.m. watershed. The same applies to programme promotions concerning adoptions. Since then, the legislator has taken action to tighten the provisions of the Civil Code on adoption. Article 128A of the Civil Code...

In October 2008 a working group consisting of members of the Lithuanian Parliament ( Seimas ) prepared amendments to the Law on the Provision of Information to the Public. The amendments are mainly linked to the regulation of the activities of the Inspector of Journalists’ Ethics. The aim of the draft law is to specify the functions of the Inspector of Journalists’ Ethics, the procedure for the examination of complaints and the rules for the adoption and publication of the Inspector’s decisions more precisely. According to the provisions of the current Law on the Provision of Information to the...

On 5 December 2008, the Flemish Government approved a draft of a new Media Decree, which aims to implement the Audiovisual Media Services Directive 2007/65/EC. The draft has been introduced in the Flemish Parliament, which is strongly expected to grant its approval to the final text of the new Decree before the regional elections in June 2009. The draft contains a set of modifications and modernizes the broadcasting law in the Flemish Community. Some of its most striking characteristics are highlighted below. The draft differentiates between “broadcasting activities” and “broadcasting services”....