Constitutional Court to examine lawfulness of Euro TV and Antena C privatisation

On Tuesday, June 26, the Constitutional Court will examine the petition signed by three Parliament deputies regarding the compliance with the Constitution of some provisions of the Audiovisual Code. They refer in particular to the provisions that constituted ground for the privatisation of the public stations Euro TV Chisinau and Antena C radio. Dumitru Tara, head of the Constitutional Court press service told Info-Prim Neo that the Court will examine the document signed by Ion Plesca, Leonid Bujor and Anatol Onceanu, members of the parliamentary faction of the Moldova Noastra Alliance Party. He mentioned that in this case the Court will consider the provision that prohibits the public administration from creating private broadcasting companies. The Court will also take into account the fact that public authorities must reorganise all the audiovisual companies that they have previously established. In the petition submitted in January 2007, the deputies from the Moldova Noastra Alliance suggested that the reorganisation or privatisation of the public broadcasting companies would violate the Constitutional provisions regarding the local autonomy, the rights of the local community, the right to equality before the law and to non-discrimination, as well as the freedom of expression. The deputies stated that this plan of taking away public audiovisual companies from the citizens of Chisinau was developed by the Communist Party, controlled by Vladimir Voronin and by the Christian-Democrat People’s Party, run by Iurie Rosca. The representatives of the two parties have implemented a strategy of promoting legislative and administrative decisions, so that the two media companies could be shared between the two allied parties. According to the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, “laws and other regulations or parts thereof become null and void from the moment that the Constitutional Court passes the appropriate decisions to that effect”. The court sitting is scheduled for Tuesday, at 10 am, and the access is free.