Member of Parliament Proposes Negative Conclusion and Asks Authors to Withdraw Bill

The chairperson of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs, Taguhi Tovmasyan, initiated a discussion in parliament with the participation of the journalistic community regarding the draft law on amending the "Law on Mass Media."

The draft, presented by civil contract faction members Arthur Hovhannisyan and Lilit Minasyan, mentions that the first part of Article 6 of the law defines that state bodies are authorized to set other grounds for refusal and termination of journalist accreditation in the accreditation procedure. However, part 5 of the same article states that the accreditation of a journalist can be terminated at the request of the media organization that submitted the accreditation request.

"To fill the gap in the law and primarily make the interaction between media organizations and state bodies more effective, it is proposed that the state body that accredited the journalist should be able to terminate the journalist's accreditation in case of violation of the disciplinary rules applicable in the workplace," the draft states.

Journalist Sevak Vardumyan expressed uncertainty about under what circumstances the parliamentary staff could revoke his accreditation. "For example, if I laugh too loudly in the hallway, is that grounds for revocation? If I hit someone, is that grounds for revocation? If I bring the microphone too close to the speaker, is that grounds for revocation?" he said, adding that the draft does not provide answers to these questions, and the parliament members did not present them either.

According to the journalist, the bill creates an opportunity for arbitrary decisions for state bodies. He sees no justification in the draft, stating that if there were points, he would gladly discuss and debate them to reach a consensus, thus calling on the authors to withdraw the draft.

The president of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Speech, Ashot Melikyan, also stated, "We must reject this approach. There should be no termination or revocation of journalist accreditation in our legislation."

Taguhi Tovmasyan expressed dissatisfaction that discussions on laws attributed to the journalistic community are not held in advance with their participation. "Yes, there are people among journalists who cause problems, and those people also create a need for such legislative initiatives, trying to justify in the corridors that these initiatives are brought in to prevent such cases," she said.

According to the deputy, the issue should be resolved within the journalistic field itself. "Each editorial office should take on the obligation to develop and publish the ethical rules to which they voluntarily adhere, and the state body should be able to monitor compliance with those ethical rules developed by them. I see this as one of the solutions, a better method of self-regulation so that the issue is settled within the journalistic field and no one has a stick to threaten to revoke a journalist's accreditation," she stated.

The MP proposed to organize a petition and to address the government, asking for a negative conclusion on the draft, and to also appeal to the authors of the draft to request its withdrawal, as the MP assessed it as legally invalid and baseless.