The formation and disbanding of the Board of Trustees of the Public Broadcaster have recently given rise to a controversy, which demonstrates the necessity of a public discussion on these topics. For this reason, TI Georgia, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), and partner NGOs are going to present their vision and recommendations about the changes in the Public Broadcaster’s Board of Trustees and about the reasons why the precedent of dismissal of the Board must not be allowed at a special press conference.
We understand that the Public Broadcaster has never operated with high standards, which was caused by the broadcaster’s ineffective management and constant political pressure. It is clear that the Board of Trustees hasn’t been able either to exercise effective financial supervision or to ensure the creation of programs oriented to the public’s interests. Unfortunately, the Board has also failed to protect the broadcaster's employees from external influence.
Due to the foregoing, the desire to disband the existing Board is completely understandable. However, in our opinion, when discussing problems in the Public Broadcaster, we should also talk about their causes. We think that all these problems were caused by political influence on certain members of the Board. For this reason, the public and the authorities should, first of all, make efforts to free the Public Broadcaster from political influence.
Dismissing the Board of Trustees entirely after the parliamentary elections is going to create a very dangerous precedent, which will allow parliamentary majorities of the future to change the Board as they wish. In this situation, members of the Public Broadcaster’s Board and management will be threatened by losing their jobs every time the parliamentary majority changes.
Moreover, such a precedent increases the risk of political interference in the activity of not only the Public Broadcaster but also of all governmental structures that are supposed to observe political neutrality.
We think that the Parliament of Georgia should consider the possibility of replacement of the Board in stages in the transitional period when it examines the procedure of staffing of the Board, the more so that, considering the rotation principle, there will be six vacant positions on the Board in the nearest future, which might be filled using new procedures. With this approach, the Georgian authorities will avoid the negative precedent of disbanding the Board, ensure a higher degree of independence of the Board, and implement the recommendations of international organizations regarding this issue, including those of the OSCE.
