MASS MEDIA LAW AND PRACTICELatvia Lithuania Estonia
Published by the Vilnius University Institute of Journalism
Issue 6
July 1998
Baltic Edition of
MASS MEDIA LAW AND PRACTICE BULLETIN
(Zakonodatelstvo i praktika sredstv massovoi informatsii, ZiP)
Editor Marius Lukosiunas
Editorial board: I. Brikse, H. Harro, M. Lukosiunas
Address: Bernardinu 11, Vilnius, Lithuania
E-mail: marius.lukosiunas@kf.vu.lt
Published in cooperation with the Media Law and Policy Center (Moscow)Publication supported by the Baltic Media Centre.
Editorial
Dear reader:
It has already been more than two years since the publication of the first issue of Mass Media Law and Practice bulletin, covering Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Since then, we had another three coming out of the printing press. We are still proud to be associated with the network created by Media Law & Policy Centre of Moscow and grateful to the Baltic Media Centre of Bornholm for support, which enables us to produce this bilingual quarterly.
This issue contains two articles. The first one is an overview of the recent developments on the Baltic mass media landscape. It highlights the major tendencies in media restructurization process. This process could be done because Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian media have already gone through the initial stage of restructurization. One could try to analyze the picture that has emerged. We hope that this overview will introduce readers to the context of political and economical developments, which had determined or, in some cases, were determined by the legislation on mass media in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
The second article is a comparative analysis of the media law system that regulates newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV stations in the Baltic. It is prepared by Marius Lukosiunas and Aldas Kazlauskas and is organised upon a framework of twenty-two categories, which are organised along the lines presented in the book Press Law and Practice (London: Article 19, International Centre Against Censorship 1993). These categories include constitutional provisions that are relevant to the mass media regulation, statutory framework of media legislation, regulation of ownership, registration requirements, regulation of import and export of publications, mechanisms of media self-regulation, libel, privacy, media right to reply, access to court documents, parliamentary sessions and public information, prior restraints, hate speech and blasphemy regulation, restrictions of advertising, protection of sources, and media and elections.
In addition, we hope that this article will provide some basic comparative materials on the legal situation in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and would enable readers to compare the legal situation between the Baltic and other Western countries. It should also be mentioned that this overview is the draft of a chapter of a book that will be published, hopefully this year, by Glasnost Foundation from Moscow.
We believe that the period of transition towards democracy in the Baltic is more or less over. Legal system on basic democratic procedures is already in place. That is why it is a right time to summarise what the Baltic societies have achieved. That is also why we feel free to concentrate, in comparative analysis, on those issues that could be described as the core issues of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Last but not least, in the coming years, one could predict that the structure of the press, as well as the legal system regulating mass media, would continue to change because all three countries have to harmonise their laws with the legislation of European Union. This process has already started, but we will leave this topic for the next issue of Baltic edition of Mass Media Law and Practice bulletin.
The Editor
In this issue
Twenty-two Categories on Mass Media Regulation in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
Russian version | Supplements from former Soviet Republics (in Russian)