An
essential element of most media regulatory bodies, during election periods and
at other times, is a complaints procedure. This is a means by which the public,
political parties, and the media themselves can seek adjudication on alleged
breaches of the law or regulations on election coverage. Since the election
period is usually short, complaints mechanisms will need to be geared towards
the speedy resolution of complaints. If, for example, the complaint concerns a
factual inaccuracy that may influence voters' intentions, there is little use
in correcting the error once the election is over.
Complainants
will always have the right to take whatever legal proceedings are laid down in
the country's laws - a civil suit claiming defamation, for example. And there
should always be a built-in appeal process that allows disappointed
complainants or the media themselves to seek a higher judgment from an independent
court of law. But in general, the emphasis is likely to be on a speedy,
no-cost, non-confrontational resolution of disputes. This may be particularly
important in a situation in which hostility between parties or communities is
great and there are likely to be many issues of dispute. For example, the
complaints mechanism in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Election Appeals Sub-Commission
(EASC), was able to deal rapidly with a whole series of complaints referred to
it by the Media Experts Commission (MEC) in the 1998 presidential election.
This helped to reduce tensions between the different communities, by not
allowing disputes between their different parties and media to escalate. This
was especially important in light of the significant role played by the media
in instigating political violence in the former Yugoslavia.
The
variety of complaints procedures is as great as the number of different types
of regulatory body. There may not even be a single uniform procedure; and a
hybrid system may be used.
Some
countries publicise complaints; others do not. As of 1999, for example, the Nicaraguan
Supreme Electoral Council received complaints and, through its Mass Media
Department, issued private rulings to the media outlets against which findings
are made. It only publicized the ruling if the media organ fails to comply.[i]
In Montenegro, by contrast, publicly-funded media are obliged to publicize any
findings of the competent authorities "about any infringement on the
principles of equality and objectivity relating to informing citizens on
agendas and candidates..."
[i] Viktor
Monakhov, "Information Disputes Relating to Election Campaigning Via the
Mass Media: The Experience of the Judicial Chamber in the 1999 Election
Campaign”, in The Media and the
Presidential Elections in Russia 2000, IFES (Moscow: Human Rights
Publishers, 2000)
