AMA violates law

This procedure will give licenses for the national digital networks, but it needs a qualified majority of five votes of the seven members of former National Council of Radio and Television (National Council of Radio and Television), now know as AMA.

For months this institution has been functioning with only four members. The fifth member, Gent Ibrahimi, had is mandate expired before the law entered in effect.

Based on AMA’s legal incapability, the two rapporteurs of the new media law, former Democratic Party Parliament Member, Mark Marku, and the Socialist Parliament Member, Alfred Dalipi, go against this procedure saying that it is a breach of the current law.

“When the mandate of one of the voters has expired, he cannot be included even in passive dispositions. It is clear that we need five votes”, Marku declared.

“This is a licensing procedure that needs five numbers. The National Council of Radio and Television has only four of them and every initiative is considered illegal”, Dalipi underlined.

The two law rapporteurrs say that there is no legal rush for continuing this procedure with a crippled institution. “Let’s interrupt the procedure until the new Parliament is created, after the regulatory entities are initiated, and then we can start the licensing”, Marku declared.

“We are talking about licenses that last 15 years. This cannot be done with a crippled National Council of Radio and Television and a procedure that goes against the law”, Dalipi declared.

But the leader of AMA, Endira Bushati, doesn’t stop here with rushing things. She hasn’t consulted the AMA members and the operators, and interested parties. One of them, Zylyftar Bregu, confirmed that they have not been consulted with the letter that Top Channel has sent to AMA.

“I remember that the head of AMA mentioned a letter coming from Top Media, but none of the members knows anything about the document, and it has not been discussed”, Bregu declared.

Top Channel, same as the other operators, has expressed its reserves against the procedure that is being followed, underlining that there is a violation of article 48 of the media law, and the draft-regulation not only has not been published on AMA’s website, but the interest groups have not had their 30-day period of time to get acquainted with it.

Besides the concrete remarks and suggestions regarding the technology and other technical aspects of this process, Top Channel has criticized the misuse made to the Geneva Agreement, on which this regulation is based. This has created room for abuses and arbitrary decisions.

But these suggestions, the procedural and technical ones alike, not only have not been taken in   consideration, but they have not been presented to the AMA members, compromising this way this important decision of the Head of this institution.

Top Channel