The members of the Council of the Nation adopted, Thursday, April 13, the draft organic law on information, presented three days ago by the Minister of Communication, Mohamed Bouslimani.
The senators blocked article 22 of the draft text which stipulates: “The journalist working in Algeria on behalf of a media under foreign law must hold prior accreditation. The terms of application of this article are set by regulation. And this is a first in the history of the Upper House of Parliament.
Thus, the members of the Council of Nation approved the reservation expressed by the parliamentary committee for culture and information and youth and tourism in its complementary report. The senators justify their decision by “contradictions in the provisions of the said article”, considering “inappropriate” the limitation of the deadline for issuing accreditation for journalists working on behalf of foreign media to 30 days from the date of submission of the request.
The senators believe in this wake that it is inconsistent to set specific deadlines while leaving the terms of application of the article in question to texts promulgated downstream. Hence the decision to block the article, so that it can be re-examined by a joint committee. Indeed, in accordance with article 145 of the Constitution, this article will be submitted, at the request of the Prime Minister, to a joint committee composed of members of the two Chambers of Parliament, to propose an alternative to its content which is the subject of ‘a disagreement.
The senators do not understand how this article could have escaped the vigilance of their peers in the National People’s Assembly (APN). Is it necessary to specify that the article in question was amended at the APN and reformulated as follows: “The journalist practicing in Algeria on behalf of a media under foreign law must first hold an accreditation issued within 30 days at most from the date of submission of his application. The terms of application of this article are set by regulation. This article has been the subject of two proposed amendments. There is Ali Rebidj, from the National Liberation Front (FLN), who proposed a three-month delay, and Abdelwahab Yakoubi, from the Society Movement for Peace (MSP), suggested reducing the delay to ten days.
Finally, the commission for culture, information and tourism, of the APN chaired by the deputy Ahmed Mouaz, decided for the period of thirty days. The text was therefore adopted on March 28 by the deputies with the exception of those of the MSP, in almost the version presented by the government.
The APN’s Culture and Communication Committee rejected many of the 54 amendments tabled by members of the Lower House.
Moreover, the voting session at the APN was marked by great tension due to a correction made the day before by the Committee on Culture and Communication, by canceling a proposed amendment to the article 4 which was nevertheless retained in the additional report drawn up for this purpose. The amendment in question lifted the ban on creating media companies, hitting dual nationals, in the initial text drawn up by the government. A ban which was taken up the day before the adoption of the text by the said commission during an emergency meeting. This was not to please the author of the proposed amendment in question, Abdelouahab Yakoubi of the MSP.
In addition, this text of law strengthens, according to its drafters, the supervision of the work of journalists by introducing new provisions. Among the main provisions of the text, there is in particular the exclusion of the holders of dirty money from any investment in the field of the press, the prohibition on the Algerian media from benefiting from any “financing” or “direct and indirect material aid from any foreign party” under penalty of “penal sanctions provided for by law”.
The exclusion also of dual nationals from the right to hold or be a shareholder in a media in Algeria. If the text stipulates that “professional secrecy constitutes a right for the journalist in accordance with the legislation and the regulations in force”, it specifies that the journalist is obliged to reveal his sources to justice if it so requires.
At the end of the voting session at the Council of the Nation, Bouslimani reassured the parliamentarians as to the support “of their proposals, concerns and recommendations” raised through the implementing texts of this law and the laws governing information activity, all media combined.
In response to a question on the “reservation” issued by the Committee on Culture, Information of the Senate, on article 22 he affirmed that “the freezing or the reservation are ordinary procedures”, explaining that “the reservation in question concerns the accreditation of the foreign press in Algeria”. It should also be noted that the MSP, which opposes the new provisions of this text of law, intends to seize the Constitutional Court.
