The Serbian Parliament’s Culture and Information Committee invited nominations for members of the country’s electronic media watchdog on Thursday.
The invitation comes at the demand of Belgrade University students who blocked the state TV (RTS) headquarters for days before the committee decided to meet their demand on April 28.
An advertisement in the pro-regime Politika daily set a 15 day deadline for nominations to the Council of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM). The advertisement was also published in the Official Gazette and the Serbian Parliament web site. The committee revoked an earlier invitation for nominations.
The REM Council has 9 members, all of who are appointed by parliament – 3 are elected to terms of 2 years, 3 to terms of 4 years and the remaining 3 for 6 year terms. The list of institutions that can make nominations include universities, the Ombudsman, Commissioners for equality and for information and electronic media publishers as well as journalist organizations and filmmaker associations along with freedom of expression organizations. REM Council members can’t advocate the interests of the organizations or institutions that nominated them but should be independent, the ad said and added that only experts in fields important to the functioning of the body can be elected.
Source: N1
