Here is a proposal worked out by Toby Mendel, an international expert regarding a draft amendment to the law on press freedom which is being drawing up by a joint working group of the Presidential Office of Mongolia and the Ministry of Justice and Internal Affairs. Toby Mendel mentioned that any law on protection of press freedom must contain some elements, and then said that almost all or most of the elements are not reflected in the draft of new wording.

The draft Law of Mongolia on Freedom of the Press (draft Law) was prepared by the Special Advisor to the President, after a number of consultations with civil society and media groups. The motivation for preparing the draft Law appears to be a sense among key stakeholders that the current legal framework fails to provide sufficient protection for freedom of the press. This may be partly because the 1997 Law on Freedom of the Media includes only four operative provisions, which rule out laws that restrict freedom of the media, make media outlets responsible for their own content, rule out prior censorship and State control over broadcasters, and prohibit the government from setting up its own media.

The intentions behind the draft Law are no doubt positive. At the same time, many of its provisions are problematical either from a technical point of view or from the perspective of international law. It also does rather little to promote freedom of the media. It does provide protection for confidential sources of information, which is an important extension to existing protections for media freedom in Mongolia. However, its provisions
on self-regulation are simply not workable or detailed enough to deliver this goal. In other areas too — such as its provisions on media freedom, on access to information and on defamation — it is too general, and too little developed, to deliver useful benefits.

It may be noted that a law which sought to protect freedom of the media might usefully include a number of elements that are largely or entirely missing from the draft Law.

Such a law might, for example:

- Indicate that freedom of the media shall be respected in accordance with international standards.
- Set out a number of features of freedom of the media such as respect for editorial independence, the right to establish media outlets, the right to criticise leaders and so on.
- Provide for protection against prosecution except in accordance with a clear and pre-existing law.
- Do away with the requirement of registration of the print media, or substantially amend the existing system.
- Establish clear rules governing any restrictions on freedom of the media.

The purpose of these Comments is to help ensure that the draft Law takes into account as fully as possible international standards and better practice in other States regarding regulation of the media. They are based on an informal translation of the draft Law, provided to the Centre for Law and Democracy by the Open Society Forum.

More Comments on the Draft Law on  Freedom of the Press

http://www.law-democracy.org