JULY 2023

Updated statement of the Association of Commercial Television (AKTV) following an agreement by EU Member States on a general approach. As we stated in our position last July, we support and welcome the efforts of the EP and the Council to promote democracy and strengthen the plurality of views in order to protect journalists and other human rights defenders in general, even though this type of action with a cross-border element is almost non-existent in our country.

Just as the Czech Republic expressed some concerns about the possible impact on national law in its official position on the draft directive drawn up by the Ministry of Justice last year, we subsequently commented in our position of July 2022 on whether the Commission’s proposal might in some areas go beyond the legal basis on which the EU is established, as well as whether the compulsory introduction of hitherto unknown procedural institutes could potentially contravene the principle of the procedural autonomy of the Member State, i.e. whether the procedural rules contained in the draft directive, which are still alien to Czech law, could lead to changes in national procedural legislation and be used in proceedings where international overlaps can hardly be seen.

For the above reasons, we very much appreciate that the negotiations held on the text took into account the concerns raised and that the draft text of the directive was modified to the extent that for the majority of the provisions considered – not only by us – to be at least controversial, the Member States negotiated a wording taking into account the differences in the national legal systems of the Member States and leaving more room in the modified draft for the individual Member States to appropriately incorporate the intended objective into existing national legislation.

In particular, we appreciate the modifications made to the following Articles:

– Article 7: Third party intervention;
– Article 9: Early dismissal;
– Article 11: Accelerated procedure;
– Article 12: Burden of proof; and
– Article 14: Award of costs.

Conclusion:

Although we can imagine further refinement of the proposed text of the forthcoming directive, such as narrowing some of the definitions in Article 3, which would certainly contribute to an easier application of the proposed provisions, in view of the changes made to the text of the directive in the course of the above-mentioned negotiations, and also in view of the fact that we are in line with the efforts of the EP and the Council to promote democracy and strengthen the plurality of views with the aim to protect journalists and other human rights defenders, since freedom of expression and free media are essential for the functioning of the rule of law, we support the text of the directive as it stands after the general approach has been reached by the Member States.