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The Amsterdam Recommendations on Freedom of the Media and the Internet were launched by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media at a conference in the city on 14 June 2003. The Recommendations stress the importance of eliminating "[b]arriers at all levels, be they technical, structural or educational", to digital networks and the Internet. Likewise, the importance of access to the public domain for "technical and cultural innovation" is also stressed, and it is added that the adoption of new provisions relating to copyright and patent law should not jeopardise this access. The Recommendations...

The Model Statute “On state secrets”, an advisory legislative instrument, was adopted by the Interparliamentary Assembly of CIS Member States on 16 June 2003. It confirms the legislative bans on disclosing information that constitutes a state secret, and those who break it face criminal, administrative, civil or disciplinary penalties that by that time had already existed in all post-Soviet countries. By state secrets the statute understands “information of military, economic, political and other nature, disclosure of which inflicts or may inflict harm on the national security of the State” (Article...

The Presidential Decree 77/2003, published on 28 March 2003, ratified a new code of conduct for news and other political programmes drafted by the National Council for Radio and Television (ESR). This code of conduct was drawn up in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 3(15) of Law 2328/1995. Under this Article, prior to the elaboration of codes of conduct, the National Council for Radio and Television must seek the opinion of the National Federation of the Reporters' Associations, as well as the opinion of the Advertising Agencies and advertisers' representative associations, of the...

On 28 May 2003, the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers adopted a Declaration on freedom of communication on the Internet. The aim of the Declaration is to reaffirm the importance of freedom of expression and free circulation of information on the Internet. As stated in the preamble, the Committee of Ministers is concerned about attempts to limit public access to communication on the Internet for political reasons or other motives contrary to democratic principles. The Declaration states that content on the Internet should not be subjected to restrictions that go further than those applied...

In a decision of 12 March 2003, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court - BVerfG) dismissed constitutional appeals by journalists complaining that investigations had been made into their telephone communications data. The investigating authorities presumed that certain journalists had been in telephone contact with persons under suspicion of committing serious crimes. At the request of the investigating authorities, the courts had ordered the relevant telecommunications companies to provide the authorities with information regarding communications data. In this way the authorities...