Following reports published on the website of Serbia’s Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) - and subsequently carried by several outlets as an official REM decision that N1 and Nova television channels violated the pre-election silence - four members of the REM Council issued a sharp rebuttal, clarifying that no such decision was ever made by the REM Council.
Oglas
In a joint statement signed by Dubravka Valic Nedeljkovic, Ira Prodanov Krajisnik, Mileva Malesic and Rodoljub Sabic, the four members said the Council had neither discussed nor voted on whether N1 and Nova had breached the pre-election silence rules.
“The October 23 Council meeting could not be held because there was no quorum, and the alleged violation of pre-election silence by N1 and Nova was not even proposed as an agenda item,” they said.
They stressed that under the Law on Electronic Media, the Council holds exclusive authority to pass regulatory acts and decisions.
“The media regulator’s professional technical service is mandated to monitor programming, establish facts, and draft expert findings, but it cannot bypass the Council. It has absolutely no legal authority to rule on behalf of REM that a specific media outlet broke the law, nor can it present such conclusions to the public as an official regulatory decision,” the REM Council members emphasized.
Consequently, they said, claims that “REM has established” or “REM has officially confirmed” that N1 and Nova violated the election blackout are entirely false.
“It is particularly alarming that certain pro-government media outlets immediately began circulating this non-existent Council decision as an established fact. Headlines included ‘Official Confirmation from REM: N1 and Nova S Violated Pre-Election Silence’ and ‘REM Officially Confirms,’ misleading the public into believing that REM’s governing body passed a decision that simply does not exist,” the statement said.
As a result, they argued, the issue was no longer confined to questionable internal conduct at REM. False claims that a Council decision existed had become part of a media campaign aimed at discrediting the two outlets immediately before the election by invoking the authority of an independent regulator.
“The fact that a document of this nature was published in the name of an independent regulator without a decision by its Council, without the signature of an authorized official and without any transparency regarding who cleared it for publication speaks to the institution’s complete capture by the authorities during the election campaign,” the statement said.
The REM Council members called for an immediate investigation to establish who drafted and authorized the publication of the disputed decision in REM’s name, who authorized the technical services department to contact N1 and Nova in the manner described in the statement, which Council act served as the basis for informing the public that the law had been violated, who was responsible for presenting findings the Council had never considered as the regulator’s official decisions, and how information presented as an “official confirmation from REM” reached the media before the Council had even considered the matter.
They also demanded that REM withdraw the disputed announcement pending clarification of these facts and publicly inform the media that the Council had not adopted a decision finding that N1 and Nova had violated the pre-election silence period.
They said they expected media outlets that had reported that REM had “established” or “officially confirmed” a violation of the pre-election silence rules to correct the false information and clearly inform the public that no such Council decision existed. They also called on the media outlets that carried the story to issue swift retractions.
The four REM Council members underscored that the regulator’s independence dictates that no one – not the Council chair, the director, or the technical services department - can usurp the Council’s collective powers or speak on its behalf outside of legally mandated procedures.
“It is a fact that REM, as we are hereby informing ODIHR and other domestic and international election observers, was initially paralyzed by the actions of members aligned with the ruling authorities and has now, in the midst of the election campaign, been both formally and de facto hijacked. The regulator, which is meant to guarantee a level playing field for all participants in the electoral process, has been weaponized by the government to manufacture and distribute politically expedient news and fabricated ‘decisions’, in disregard of all legally prescribed procedures,” the statement said.
The signatories warned that the situation is no longer just a bureaucratic obstruction of the regulator’s work, but a flagrant takeover of its institutional functions for the purpose of exerting political pressure and discrediting independent media - an act they noted constitutes a criminal offense for which accountability must be established.
Teme