Grosu, Sergiu

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Policy Documentation Center

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ADEPT 
 
 
Legal Commentaries 
 
Quality revision of "conditions of political 
consensus" 
 
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Sergiu Grosu, April 1, 2007 
I. Revision of the Parliament’s Regulation 
Fifty-eight parliamentarians representing the Party of Communists of Moldova 
(PCRM) and the Christian Democratic People’s Party (CDPP) adopted on March 23 a 
law on modification of Article 82 of the Parliament’s Regulation, which was tabled (on 
March 19) by Communist Deputy Victor Stepaniuc and CDPP lawmakers Iurie Rosca 
and Stefan Secareanu. The law adopted concomitantly in two readings modified 
Article 82 (2) of the Parliament’s Regulation and stipulates that plenary sittings of 
the Parliament, except for secret sittings, may be broadcasted live by national radio 
and television in compliance with the Broadcasting Code or at the Parliament’s 
initiative, under a decision of majority of present lawmakers.  
This draft was adopted with violation of the Parliament’s Regulation (Law 430-XVI 
from 27.12.2006, enforced on 23.03.2007), Art.63/1 which stipulate that:  
• the draft law is delivered to the appealed commission or other competent 
commission after it is debated in the first reading, in order to examine 
amendments of lawmakers, objections and proposals of parliamentary 
factions, permanent commissions, decisions of Government, legal directorate 
of the Parliament’s Apparatus, as well as proposals of civil society 
representatives and to present a report;  
• lawmakers, permanent commissions and parliamentary faction may raise 
amendments to the appealed commission within 10 days after the draft was 
passed in the first reading, during preparation of the draft for debates in the 
second reading;  
• developers of amendments may take part in the sitting of the commission in 
charge with finalising the draft law. The commission will inform the author 
beforehand that it holds a sitting.  
Most of opposition lawmakers and independent observers said that this amendment 
annuls the obligation to broadcast live the plenary sittings of the Parliament on 
national radio and television. This supposition was confirmed by a developer of the 
draft law, Iurie Rosca, who said during debates that this amendment is needed to 
stop the abusive interventions of representatives of some parliamentary factions, to 
limit advertising and public appearance of representatives of some parties that did 
not participate in electoral race independently.  
II. Weak motivation 
Following are the formal reasons invoked when the amendment was promoted: the 
need of "ensuring the budgetary austerity", "ensuring the accordance of legislation 
with provisions of the Broadcasting Code" and "ensuring equal conditions for 
electoral competitors during campaign for local elections," but these reasons are not 
considered plausible because a series of arguments combat them:  
1. Budgetary funds are not very large even under conditions of "budgetary austerity" 
and in comparison with the annual budget of TeleRadio-Moldova Company (this 
budget exceeds 51.5 million lei in 2007). At the same time, the broadcasting on 
radio only would cost much less money. On the other hand, the launching of a cycle 
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of thematic broadcasts, introduction of new programmes to cover the air time on 
morning will produce expenses commensurable with those for live broadcasting.  
2. Arguments regarding the "editorial and creative independence" ensured by new 
Broadcasting Code do not resist because:  
• Both the broadcasting law (# 603/1995) and especially the law on national 
broadcasting company TeleRadio-Moldova (# 1320/2002) were earlier 
guaranteeing the "independence and creative freedom of the public 
broadcaster." These norms were in force when the mandatory live 
broadcasting of plenary sittings was introduced (April 2005) and we cannot 
believe that the Parliament, the electronic media watchdog CCA, the board of 
observers and the TeleRadio-Moldova administration could not observe 
eventual discordances and encroachments;  
• The second part of the voted text says that the live broadcasting will be also 
decided "with the vote of majority of present lawmakers," besides airing "in 
compliance with the Broadcasting Code." Or, the basic principle of legislation 
says that a law cannot be applied depending on "importance" of the debated 
problems, but it must be generally applied in all situations;  
• Governor of the Administrative Territorial Unity Gagauzia has recently agreed 
with administration of the regional public broadcaster TeleRadio-Gagauzia to 
air live the sittings of the executive committee of the autonomy. This decision 
aims to "inform residents about actions taken by administration to create an 
attractive zone for investments with a minimum corruption rate in the region, 
for financial decentralisation and honest and fair elections. By broadcasting 
live the sittings of the executive, the administration wants a transparent 
activity and aims to involve the population in looking for solutions." Turkish 
investors are expected to help covering the imminent expenses. We note that 
representatives of the regional broadcasting did not see any violation of their 
editorial freedom and policy in the new obligations, while "interested" 
authorities have legal ways to negotiate and resolve the problem of complete 
and impartial coverage of its activity, if they do want this.  
3. The legal initiative was not worked out as a response to argued appeals from CCA, 
the board of observers of TeleRadio-Moldova administration to invoke and argue the 
contradiction between the Broadcasting Code and the Parliament’s Regulation, to 
indicate the limitation of "creative freedom" of the company and to recommend an 
appropriate amendment.  
4. The Broadcasting Code contains certain direct or indirect regulations that allow 
and even recommend the live broadcasting of the Parliament’s sittings:  
a. Article 2 (d) stipulates that the public broadcaster is the national or regional 
broadcasting institution with a status of public legal entity, which serves the 
society, has an independent editorial policy, and the society supervises its 
activity. It is hard to imagine a better way to serve the society but the direct 
and plenary information of society about activity of the supreme 
representative body and only legislative authority;  
b. Article 10 (Rights of consumer to broadcasts) stipulates that the law 
guarantees the right to a complete, objective and true information, the right 
to free expression of opinions and the right to free communication of 
information via radio and television. Broadcasters are obliged to provide an 
objective information to broadcast consumer, favouring the free formation of 
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opinions. The complete, objective and true information, the free formation of 
opinions are when "programmes are not edited and prepared", with the live 
broadcasting being freed of influenced interventions.  
c. Article 51 stipulates among attributions of TeleRadio-Moldova Company the 
ensuring of the right to information of all categories of citizens of Moldova; 
favouring democratic debates, exchanges of opinions between diverse 
categories of population, as well as integration of citizens into society. The 
company holds the right to register or to broadcast live and free of charge the 
sittings of the Parliament, Government, and public debates of public 
authorities…, regardless of their place.  
5. The argument of "ensuring equal conditions during electoral campaign" is partly 
valid but it is combated by following findings:  
a. In order to ensure equal changes at elections, lawmakers should modify 
appropriately the Election Code and to establish the need of relieving the 
electoral candidates from offices even if they are members of the Parliament 
– the campaign for the 2007 local elections will last about 30 days for 
electoral competitors and the Parliament will hold 4 plenary sittings of several 
hours in this period, accordingly to a recently approved programme. Even if 
admitting that majority of lawmakers are relieved from offices and sittings 
lack the required cvorum, the suspension of parliamentary session for one 
month would not essentially deteriorate the situation in the country, with 
some issues from the programme being examined urgently, others postponed 
for the post-electoral period.  
b. The recent amendments to the Parliament’s Regulation (Art.116–121) 
introduce some restrictions on conduct of lawmakers at sittings and establish 
a series of sanctions capable to reduce electoral promotion attempts 
(chairman of the sitting of majority of lawmakers may call for order, withdraw 
words, eliminate from sitting hall (with the help of some special forces), ban 
lawmakers who violate the regulations to enter the sitting hall).  
c. The Central Election Commission (CEC) has recently examined appeals from 
some political parties, which described the appearance of public servants on 
TV and statements they delivered during TV programmes as "electoral 
advertising and influencing of electors." CEC turned down the appeals, saying 
that some statements delivered during broadcasts, which also appreciated the 
political parties concerned, did not contain "elements of electoral 
propaganda."  
d. Parliamentary parties did not earlier "ensure equal conditions" for extra-
parliamentary political colleagues; only parliamentary parties have dominant 
representatives in the Chamber of Auditors, CEC, CCA, etc. The concern with 
equity before elections raises some suspicions regarding sincerity of these 
statements.  
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III. Lack of alternatives 
Some important events deserve to be remarked in this context.  
Firstly, the interested public was not proposed another way of access to public 
sittings:  
a. Free access to the sitting hall;  
b. Publishing of audio records of sittings on websites with several minutes before 
the end of the sitting;  
c. Online broadcasting of plenary sittings (the necessary equipment would cost 
maximum tens thousands dollars and international institutions which welcome 
such initiatives would sponsor the purchase);  
d. Creation of a parliamentary information channel (even for a charge, for all 
people willing to watch it), etc.  
Secondly, Speaker Mariana Lupu invoked not very plausible technical reasons and a 
decision by an internal body of the Parliament and made the parliamentary majority 
turn down a proposal seeking a faster editing and publishing of records of plenary 
sittings on website (3–5 days would be enough for these procedures, especially 
because there are special programmes that allow the mechanical transcription of 
audio records and the audio text would be verified later with the written text).  
Not the last, it should be noted that the Parliament’s decision came with a couple of 
days before a new administration of TeleRadio-Moldova was elected and observers 
remarked a certain synchronisation of actions, saying that developers of this 
initiative were calm regarding the appointment of their candidates to leading posts.  
We recall that the PPCD faction released a statement at the November 2, 2006 
plenary sitting, regretting in connection with intention of the parliamentary majority 
to stop the live broadcasting of plenary sittings and noting that this is an "old and 
closed topic." According to the statement, the problem of long, repeat and 
groundless interventions is resolved through appropriate amendments to the 
Parliament’s Regulation (these norms entered into force on March 23, 2007). Finally, 
the PPCD faction appeals to Vladimir Voronin as Moldovan president and leader of 
the ruling party to "use its authority and influence in order to maintain the live 
broadcasting of parliamentary sittings." The faction did not deliver statements at the 
March 23 sitting, with the PPCD leader speaking out as developer of the initiative and 
expressing opinions on behalf of himself and his party, not of the parliamentary 
party. It is worth to mention that PPCD Deputy Gheorghe Susarenco said that he will 
quit the party, if this draft law is voted, motivating his decision through the need of 
respecting the previous agreements ("pacta sunt servanda"); so the decision to back 
this draft was unanimous not even inside the parliamentary faction.  
IV. Conclusions 
The new legal amendments did not immediately stop the live broadcasting of 
parliamentary sittings. Besides the fact that the law must be promulgated and 
published in order to enter into force, there are some issues that seem more 
interesting than the talks on conduct of the parliamentary coalition.  
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The broadcasting can be ceased under an internal act of the company adopted by its 
administration, but the decision in this respect of the board of observers must be 
also consulted beforehand.  
Further, the new administration of the company must decide on this issue, in order 
to establish if it will ensure the live broadcasting and choose modalities, concrete 
days because ad-hoc decisions may be interpreted as an unfair selection of priorities 
and (local, partial, new, regional) elections may take place somewhere at that 
moment.  
These situations will be a serious testing of implementation of the new Broadcasting 
Code, capacities and way that the board of observers and the new TeleRadio-
Moldova administration consider that they should act, the way these entities perceive 
the "public interest". Indeed, this will be a test of independence and readiness of 
new structures of the national public broadcaster for transformations.  
At the same time, this situation involves a new approach of proposals-conditions 
raised by constructive opposition during election of the chief of state and regarding 
functioning of the parliamentary political consensus. These proposals, which are just 
formally accomplished, are tested in terms of quality and effects of implementation 
and, for this reason, we could observe the revision of other stances in future. As the 
closest events are linked to the electoral campaign and the post-election period, we 
may see the Parliament revising the legal regulations on elections, on local public 
administration, if something goes wrong and the parliamentary coalition is affected.  
 


Legal Commentaries - quality revision of \u201cconditions of political consensus\u201d

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