Broadcasting body rejects Brincat`s allegations

The Broadcasting Authority has filed a counter-protest in the First Hall of the Civil Court in response to a judicial protest filed against it by the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Dr Joseph Brincat.

The authority noted that Dr Brincat had declared he had filed his protest in his personal capacity and had raised issues regarding the application of the constitution and the Broadcasting Act. However, it did not seem as though Dr Brincat was an aggrieved party in terms of law and he therefore had no juridical interest to file judicial proceedings against the authority.

Dr Brincat had claimed that the MLP was the party aggrieved by the issues he raised but it did not result that the political party had itself raised any complaint of this sort with the authority about the series of programmes produced by Lou Bondì.

The BA added that contrary to the manner in which the protest had been reported by a section of the press, Dr Brincat had raised a number of issues on principles that deserved to be discussed in the context of a public debate.

Dr Brincat had declared that certain rules applied to the public as opposed to the private broadcasting media on matters of political or industrial controversy or which affected public policy. This, the BA explained, was a fundamentally incorrect declaration and was directly opposed to the provisions of the constitution. This body of law imposed an obligation on the BA to act as impartially as possible on such issues on all the broadcasting media without exception.

The BA was of the opinion that the constitutional obligation of impartiality extended also to the political parties that were duty bound to respect, so far as possible, the right of the viewer to impartial broadcasting on such matters of political or industrial controversy or on matters of public policy.

The obligation of impartiality imposed by the constitution and the Broadcasting Act could not be deemed to protect only the right of the political parties to express their views but had to incorporate the right of every citizen to have access to different political beliefs.

Contrary to what Dr Brincat had alleged, no provision of the Broadcasting Act or of the constitution prohibited the type of investigative programme produced by Bondì. If anything, the Broadcasting Act and its second schedule (the National Broadcasting Plan) explicitly favoured such programmes, provided that impartiality was observed as much as possible.

The BA added that neither did it appear as though the production of such programmes by a journalist who was not an employee of the public broadcasting sector was prohibited. This was subject to the condition that impartiality was observed and to the fact that the public broadcasting station had to assume final responsibility for the production, both as to its subject matter and also as to the manner in which the programme was produced.

The authority said it did not believe it ought to restrict the right of freedom of expression beyond such limitations.

Dr Brincat`s complaint could therefore be viewed under two different aspects.

The first was that his allegation was in the sense that the programmes produced did not observe the condition of impartiality. In this regard the authority had not found that the programmes in question lacked the necessary balance required in the light of the subject matter or in the manner in which the subject was treated.

Dr Brincat was entitled to his subjective opinion but the authority was bound to evaluate the matter objectively and to examine the complaint and evidence produced to substantiate it. The BA could not ignore the fact that an independent board appointed by it last year had chosen one of the programmes in the series Bondì+ (aired in September 2001) as the best investigative TV programme.

The authority added that the second aspect under which Dr Brincat`s complaint could be viewed was that he was declaring that the public broadcasting sector did not offer the same access to journalists of opposing political beliefs. According to Dr Brincat, the simple fact that a programme of this nature was only produced by a journalist of proclaimed political opinions - even if produced in a professional manner - necessarily created a situation of imbalance in broadcasting.

The BA acknowledged that while it was expected of a public station to produce its own programmes of this nature, even though there was no legal obstacle to such programmes being farmed out, there was scope for this aspect of Dr Brincat`s protest to be evaluated. This would ensure the requisite impartiality, so far as possible, and would ensure that impartiality would not only exist but would be seen to exist.

The authority rejected all of Dr Brincat`s other allegations.

It formally called upon Dr Brincat not to make any unfounded allegations in its regard.

Prof. Ian Refalo signed the counter-protest.