Legal reviews

A Comparative Legal Analysis of Ukrainian Regulation of Hate Speech in the Media was commissioned by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, upon official request of the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine, and prepared by Toby Mendel, Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Democracy, Canada, and an independent media and freedom of expression legal expert. The analysis indicates that when it comes to protection for freedom of expression in Ukraine, the constitutional test for restrictions on different rights is largely in line with international standards. However, it does allow for restrictions “in the interests of” protecting various values, rather than the far more stringent international standard which requires restrictions to be “necessary” to protect the values listed. The analysis also offers a number of recommendations that would ensure compliance of the Ukrainian legislation with the OSCE media freedom commitments and international standards.

The legal review, commissioned by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media from Professor Yaman Akdeniz, an internationally renowned expert on Internet freedom, assesses the Article in light of the above international treaties and offers ways to improve the legislation governing Internet freedom in Turkey. Its main recommendation is to refrain from adopting Article 73 in its current form, and to focus further discussion on licensing that is based on a “notification model” instead of a system of a priori control where media service providers and platform operators would be required to obtain a licence from the Radio and Television Supreme Council (“RTÜK”).

The analysis of certain provisions of the basic law of the Kyrgyz Republic ‘On election of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic and Deputies of the Jogorku Kenesh of the Kyrgyz Republic’ in relation to the provisions regulating activities of the Internet-based media in the campaign period against the backdrop of international treaties, the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic, the national legislation was conducted in September 2017. The expert suggests establishing legal obligation on the part of the state to provide for the freedom of expression in the campaign period, as well as provide the same rights to the Internet-based media as pertains to the mainstream media and to drop the notion of the Internet-based medium, unless it is modified according to the international standards. The full text of the analysis is available in Russian only.