Public Defender Defends Imedi TV

Public Defender Sozar Subari has called on the Georgian National Communications Commission (GNCC) not to suspend Imedi TV’s broadcast license.

GNCC said last month it would consider the issue at a session on February 15, citing a clause in the law on broadcasting that says that “a political party or an official of a political party can not act as owner of a broadcast license.” Imedi co-owner Badri Patarkatsishvili’s recent presidential bid, according to the GNCC, constituted a breach of the law. 

“The decision is unclear,” the public defender said in a statement issued on February 12, “because it does not indicate which political party Patarkatsishvili represents, or what type of official position he holds in the political party.”

Patarkatsishvili is in fact not a member of any political party.

The public defender also pointed out that the actual owner of the Imedi broadcast license is Teleimedi Ltd., which is not a political party.

Subari also cited a law stipulating that the GNCC can only consider suspending a broadcast license if there has been a second violation of the same term of the broadcast license. As this is allegedly only the first violation of the given regulation, the GNCC should at most only have imposed a fine or given a warning. 

In a separate statement issued on February 8, the public defender requested that the Georgian General Prosecutor’s Office investigate, what he called, a violation of the law by the GNCC with last November’s decision to fine Imedi TV GEL 2,500 for airing a written statement by Patarkatsishvili. The GNCC said it ammounted to an incitement to public disorder.

Patarkatsishvili’s statement, the public defender said, was aired by Imedi TV at 6:28pm local time on November 7, 2007; while the decree by the GNCC was drawn up at 5:40pm on November 7 and the GNCC session which passed the decree was held at 6pm on the same day.

Subari, in a somewhat ironic tone, wondered how it had been possible that the Commission had predicted what Imedi would broadcast later that evening. “The action of the GNCC bears signs of a crime provided by Article 341 of the Criminal Code of Georgia,” he went on. “Official fraud, i.e. the introduction of false information or recording into an official document by an official or person equaled to such, or drawing up or issuing of a false document, as well as falsification of an official or private document… committed with self-interest or other personal motive in mind.”