ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly passed, “The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2023” which gives the powers to the Parliamentary Committee for appointment of the PEMRA chairperson.
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2023 was passed by both houses separately on the same day with some amendments.
Earlier, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb on Monday withdrew Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) Amendment Bill, 2023, as passed by the National Assembly. After it, the bill once again was tabled on the floor of the Senate with some amendments for passage. Both houses were in session. The Senate and the National Assembly passed the bill, separately.
According to a new sub-section (2A) which was inserted in clause 4 of the bill, “The division to which business of this Ordinance stands allocated shall recommend a panel of five candidates fulfilling the conditions of sub-section (2) and send it to a parliamentary committee consisting of four members two from the National Assembly and two from the Senate to be nominated by the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairman of the Senate, respectively, out of which one shall be from the treasury benches and one from the opposition in each House and the parliamentary committee shall consider the panel and recommend one candidate for appointment by the President under sub-section (1) and where the parliamentary committee fails to recommend within thirty days of receipt of the panel any person, the division concerned shall forward the panel to the Prime Minister who shall recommended to the President the candidate eminently suited to be appointed as Chairman by the President: Provided that any time when the National Assembly stands dissolve, all members of the parliamentary committee shall be from the Senate nominated by the Chairman Senate; and for sub-section (4A), the following shall be substituted, namely: - “The remaining two members shall, by the division to which business of this Ordinance stands allocated, be appointed on need basis on recommendation of the Chairman and they shall be non-voting honorary members, one from broadcasters and one from Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ).”
According to another amendment the word “salaries”, wherever accruing, the word “dues” shall be substituted.
According to the objects and reasons of the bill, amendments in the form of the PEMRA (Amendments Bill, 2023) have been proposed whose objects and reasons are as follows: "Disinformation" and 'Misinformation" are being added to the definitions in order to provide legal measures to counter challenges of false, misleading, manipulated, created or fabricated information.”
These proposed amendments/ insertions deal with the, following issues:“(i) Payment of minimum wages (ii) Timely payment of wages/ dues, not later than two months, to electronic media employees by the broadcasters (iii) Stoppage of release of commercials to broadcasters till the payment of pending salaries to its employees on the recommendation of Authority or Council of Complaints (iv) Inclusion of one representative from broadcasters and one representative from Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) as non-voting honorary members of the Authority (PEMRA) (v) For the purpose of receiving and reviewing complaints made by the electronic media employees to the extent of payment of minimum wages policy and timely payment of their salaries, in each Council of Complaints, two non-voting honorary members shall be appointed, one from broadcasters and one from electronic media employees. Validity of 20 years for broadcast media license and 10 years' validity for distribution service license are being introduced in Section 24. The validity of licenses is subject to payment of annual fee, including late payment fee if any as may be prescribed from time to time. However, it will not include annual gross advertisement revenue in any form whatsoever.”
As per Clause 3: Amendments of section 2, Ordinance XIII of 2OO2, "disinformation" means verifiably false, misleading, manipulated, created or fabricated information which is disseminated or shared with the intention to cause harm to the reputation of or to harass any person for political, personal, or financial interest or gains without making an effort to get other person's point of view or not giving it proper coverage and space but does not include misinformation;"
Clause 10: Amendments of section 24, Ordinance XIII of 2OO2. - In the said Ordinance, in section 24, -
(i) for sub-section (4t., the following shall be substituted, namely: -"(4) A license of broadcast media shall be valid for a period of twenty years and distribution service license shall be valid for a period not exceeding ten years from the issuance date subject to payment of annual fee, including late payment fee if any as may be prescribed from time to time but shall not include annual gross advertisement revenue in any form whatsoever."; and(ii) after sub-section (4), substituted as aforesaid, the following new sub-section shall be inserted, namely:-"(4A) License renewal fee shall be fifty percent of applicable fee of last bid price of the same category but shall not include annual gross advertisement revenue in any form whatsoever."
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023