Bill Offers Speeding Up New Board for Public TV
GD parliamentary majority has proposed a bill envisaging starting formation of a new board of the Georgian Public Broadcaster a month earlier than planned.
GPB’s current board of trustees became defunct after two out of its remaining nine sitting members (six seats in 15-seat board were already vacant) stepped down earlier last month. With remaining seven sitting members the board became incapable to take any decision as at least eight members are required to be present at a session.
This summer Parliament amended law on broadcasting, introducing, among other issues, new rule of composition of the board; according to these amendments the sitting board should remain till January 1, 2014.
But newly proposed amendment offers to launch procedures for formation of the new board from November 25, 2013. Sponsors of the bill cite “crisis” in the sitting board as the reason behind the initiative to speed up formation of the new board.
New rule, introduced as a result of legislative amendments this summer, excludes president from the process of selecting board members. Previously the president was selecting three candidates for each of the 15 seats in the board and then the parliament confirming one of those three candidates for each seat.
According to the new rule number of seats will be reduced to nine.
Three members will have to be nominated by the parliamentary majority and three by the parliamentary minority group and other lawmakers who are not part of either parliamentary majority or minority groups. Candidates for these six seats should be selected through competition by a nine-member commission, which should be established specifically for this purpose by the Parliamentary Chairman and should be composed of civil society representatives. The commission should nominate at least three candidates for each seat in GPB’s board of trustees.
Two members of GPB’s board have to be selected by the Public Defender through competition and one member will be nominated by the local legislative body of Adjara Autonomous Republic.
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