Why Uganda needs a free press [opinion]

The cabinet is discussing the Press and Journalist (Amendment) Bill 2010 which proposes to empower the Media Council to control the licensing of newspapers and to close ‘errant’ media houses.

 

The Bill also calls for the strengthening of the disciplinary committee of the Media Council whose board will be appointed by the Minister for Information. This is a worrying trend as it will be difficult to start a newspaper and media houses that are deemed to be ‘hostile’ to the government would be easily closed.

 

The situation for the media in Uganda has steadily worsened since 2006. According to the 2006 annual press freedom index of Reporters without Borders, Uganda is ranked 116 out of 168 representing a drop from 2005 when Uganda was ranked 80th.

 

Govt cautioned
The cabinet should be mindful that Uganda as a State party to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights is under an obligation to make every effort to give practical effect to the 2002 Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa that reaffirms the fundamental importance of freedom of expression as an individual human right, as a cornerstone of democracy and as a means of ensuring respect for all human rights and freedoms. As such, the cabinet should explore the practice of media self-regulation and make recommendations for a progressive law that provides for a self regulating independent Media Council.

 

Self-regulatory systems take many different forms. Whatever these constitutional and procedural differences may be, all media councils serve the same two main purposes. They protect media freedoms and they protect citizens from abuses of those freedoms by the media, while giving due regard to those matters which affect the public interest.

 

In seeking to reconcile aggrieved parties, regulatory bodies must give due consideration to the claims of the public interest but the nature of these claims vary according to who is advancing them.

 

The resolution of these conflicts of interest and interpretation, as and when they arise, is the central concern of all adjudicatory purposes-whether they are being carried out by statutory or self-regulatory bodies. The fact that such conflicts of principle occur so frequently explains why some form of media regulation is necessary. The dilemma we face is not one of choosing between regulation or no regulation at all but of choosing between two different kinds of regulation.

 

Two powerful arguments can be advanced in defence of self-regulation. First, a free media is one of the fundamental institutional characteristics of a free society. Newspapers and radios are public watchdogs. They scrutinise those who exercise powers in every walk of life. They frequently criticise government policies and the conduct of political office-holders.

 

Professional media
If they were ever to become more cordial there would be good grounds for questioning whether or not the press was doing its job effectively as a public watchdog.

 

Secondly, the case for self-regulation rests on the premise that, in complex democratic societies, self-imposed rules are likely to carry a greater moral authority and, consequently work with greater effectiveness than externally imposed legal rules.

 

Self-regulation, at its best, works well because it is accessible to everyone, rich and poor alike. Once established, the conduct of self-regulatory media councils and the content of their Codes of Practice evolve over time in response to changes in the law, editorial policies, public opinion, technological innovation and the hard lessons of experience.

 

These processes of change are interactive and all self-regulatory systems must respond to them. The causes of change and their outcomes, however, vary from country to country. Consequently, there is no universally applicable blueprint for self-regulation. The reason why there is no blueprint is because self-regulation depends on the voluntary compliance of all the parties involved.

 

A self-regulatory media council can, therefore, only work effectively if its code of ethical conduct is based on the civic traditions and customary values of the industry which it oversees and the general public which it serves and protects.

 

The membership of this regulatory body must be determined through the procedures of an independent appointments committee of a body that is representative of the media profession.

 

Uganda is a growing democracy and as such a free media responsible for its own regulation is one of the hallmarks of a free society. The media will find that it has a vested interest in making self-regulation work because it is never more secure from government coercion than when it enjoys the respect and trust of the general public.

Mr Babalanda is a Ugandan lawyer working for an international donor organisation in Nairobi, Kenya.

 

- March 21, 2010 by Vincent Babalanda

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Source: www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/883570/-/wjrm2p/-/index.html (accessed on 22.03.10)