H.E. Heydar Alijev
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan
Office of the President
19 Istiqlaiyyat St.
Baku, Azerbaijan

Fax: + 994 12 92 06 25

Vienna, 24 August 2001

Your Excellency,
The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, leading journalists and media executives, is extremely alarmed at the Provision on the National Council of Press, TV, Radio and Internet of the Republic of Azerbaijan (further Council) affirmed by the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan Republic of 20 July 2001.

The above-mentioned Provision establishes a National Council (“Council”), whose main purpose is to ensure that the activities of the print, broadcast and electronic media conform to the Constitution of Azerbaijan and the Law of the Azerbaijan Republic on Mass Media (LMM) that came into effect on 13 February 2000.

For this purpose, the Council has been given wide ranging powers, including the ability to regulate the broadcast media and issue licences to private broadcasters (Art. 6.3 of the Provision); to receive reports on the activities of the media (Art. 7.8); to inquire into complaints made against media practitioners (Art. 7.10); to approve a code of professional ethics for the journalists (Art .7.12) and supervise the observance of the code by journalists (Art. 19. 3).

It should be recalled that the LMM itself was repeatedly criticised by international organisations and press freedom monitoring groups for containing a number of provisions that restrict media freedom and are in breach of international standards in this area. Furthermore, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in Opinion No. 222 (June 2000), identified those parts of Azerbaijan’s legislation that need reform and noted that, in applying for membership of the Council of Europe, Azerbaijan undertook “to guarantee freedom of expression and the independence of the media and journalists, to exclude the use of administrative measures to restrict the freedom of the media;” and “to re-examine and amend the law on the media, within two years of its accession at the latest”.

IPI strongly recommends that the LMM, on which, according to the Provision, the Council should base its decisions, is revised as soon as possible and brought in line with the standards accepted by the Council of Europe.

Although Art. 1 of the Provision states that the Council is an independent organ, the establishment of the Council by law, the composition of the Council, as well as the fact that the Council is financed by the state (Art. 4), raise serious concerns for the independence of the Council. Articles 8-10 of the Provision state that the Council is formed of 39 members and among them: 18 members are nominated directly by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and the remaining 21 members are proposed by public organizations and media associations. Thus they need the approval of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

It is well established under international law that any bodies with regulatory powers in relation to the media should be strictly independent of government. This is particularly true where such bodies have extensive powers, as in the present case.

In the opinion of IPI, the decision to regulate the Council by law will have an oppressive and detrimental effect on press freedom in Azerbaijan; furthermore, it allows politicians and public officials to interfere with media freedom and, in particular, to limit the ability of the media to criticise or investigate them.

Furthermore, according to the information received by IPI, the Council has been established by a Decree of the President of Azerbaijan, without any previous consultation with the interested parties in Azerbaijan. A consultation process is an essential prerequisite for the formulation of any legislation and IPI feels strongly that the government should have issued the proposed legislation as a consultation paper and invited comments from all interested parties. The dismissal of the importance of consultation is a failure to fully appreciate the “inclusive” nature of government which is now the standard of all modern democracies.

IPI also strongly believes that the decision to bundle all forms of media into one single sector is fundamentally flawed and will be detrimental to Azerbajan’s print and electronic media. In particular, IPI feels that the decision is arbitrary in its nature and has been made without proper regard for the differences that exist between these two branches of the media. Therefore, IPI proposes that the regulation of the print media and the electronic media should be separate.

With regard to the electronic media, it is of utmost importance that the Azeri law includes clear guarantees, both formal and structural, for the independence of the body which licenses private broadcasters.

Concerning the print media, it is the opinion of IPI that the best way forward is to adopt the model of self-regulation. The adoption of this model would allow the print media to create their own press council, thus making the proposition more attractive to newspapers that fear the intervention of the government. Furthermore, an independent body would be more likely to receive co-operation from the printed press on the basis that it no longer had the potential involvement of the courts.

In view of IPI’s extensive experience of working with both the media and governments to advance the cause of press freedom and media self regulation, IPI is willing to work closely with the ruling authorities, and other interested parties in Azerbaijan, to develop a transparent procedure for the independent regulatory body to oversee the application and granting of broadcasting licences; and to set up a press council which reflects the international standards and takes into account the vibrant media scene in Azerbaijan.

IPI feels that the establishment of Media Council as described by the Provision is contrary to the spirit of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that: “Everyone has the right to […] receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”

IPI therefore recommends the repeal of the Provision on the National Council of Press, TV, Radio and Internet; and the re-examination and amendment of the media law, including provisions that ensure, both formally and in practice, the independence of any body with regulatory powers over the media. Furthermore, IPI urges the government of Azerbaijan to avoid any state regulation in the area of media ethics and instead to encourage the development of a fully self-regulatory code of journalistic practice.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director