State media in contempt of Court

By Jayashika Padmasiri

Last week Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake criticized state media organizations, alleging that the competent authority appointed by him had been humiliated and ridiculed by state media. He claimed that these media organizations have deliberately overlooked media guidelines issued by the elections department to conduct a free and fair election. With these remarks, the scope and purpose of the competent authority and his powers were questioned. LAKBIMAnEWS spoke to various persons who were directly involved with the issue.
UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake who attended the meeting organized by the Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake with representatives of political parties last week, regarding election malpractise which is on the rise, said, “It is according to powers vested in the elections commissioner and according to the constitution that he appointed a competent authority. But today the state media is refusing to abide by these laws and was openly flouting the guidelines that have been set out.’’ Meanwhile, the elections commissioner was very critical of the SLBC.

Legal action

Speaking further, Attanayake added that the UNP was planning to take legal action against these state media organizations for violating election laws.
“The Commissioner said that the government was having direct influence over state-owned media organizations, though he for his part had issued a set of media guidelines and appointed a competent authority to monitor these organizations to ensure that a balanced election campaign would be in the offing. He was very displeased, disappointed and disgusted with what the state media was doing. So we suggested that he should go to courts, and the Commissioner suggested that it was upto the political parties to go to courts instead. So now, we have asked our legal unit to investigate this matter, and see what measures could be taken against these media organizations,” Attanayake said.
Meanwhile, we spoke to an official of the elections department and asked him whether the office of competent authority was still functioning.
The official answered in the affirmative and said “Yes, according to our knowledge the competent authority is still there. Nevertheless how effective he is at the present moment is another question. However, everyone can see how the competent authority is being ignored by state media organizations when you view a state owned television channel, or listen to SLBC.”
When questioned as to why the elections commissioner has not taken any legal action against these organizations, an inside source said, “If any presidential candidate or political party, is being unjustly treated by state media organizations, then those candidates and parties should be the people who should take legal action against these biased media organizations who do not respect media guidelines or the competent authority.’’
Meanwhile, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva expressed similar sentiments regarding this situation. He said that every media organization should help conduct a free and fair election without being partial or taking sides.
“State media organizations operate with public money earned via taxes, so they should listen to the competent authority and abide by media guidelines. However, today the opposite is taking place, and state media organizations are a law unto themselves. They are supporting President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and insulting general Sarath Fonseka. That is why the elections commissioner issued media guidelines, but that did not work. Then he appointed a competent authority who was also treated with utter disdain.”
However, speaking further Tilvin Silva said that general Fonseka’s legal unit took legal action in the Supreme Court regarding this matter, and that a ruling was made that all state media organizations should abide by guidelines set by the competent authority and also abide by guidelines set out by the elections commissioner. However, when asked what will happen if these guidelines were observed in the breach, Tilvin Silva said that the offending organizations will be punished by law for contempt of court.

Refuting allegations

Nevertheless though the elections department and the main opposition parties are holding such views regarding the competent authority, the government is refuting all allegations. When we contacted the Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Media, W. B. Ganegala, he said, “I do not agree. I have personally given written instructions to both the SLBC and Rupavahini to follow media guidelines issued by the elections commissioner and the competent authority.” Speaking further Ganegala said that it was not only state media organizations but all media institutions including private media organizations that should abide by these laws.
“There are 15 television stations and 45 radio channels in Sri Lanka. So election laws are common to all media institutions,” he said.