The President of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA), Akwasi Agyeman, has said dragging the National Media Commission (NMC) to the Supreme Court over the new media, law was not an attempt to embarrass the commission.
According to him, the move was to seek interpretation of some clauses in the new law which they disagreed with.
“We are not in court to seek to embarrass the NMC or anything, we were seeking the right interpretation of the L.I. [Legislative Instrument] to be given by the Supreme Court. So the case is still pending and to that extent, we are not elated. I don’t think at the end of the day there will be any elation in this matter. All that we are asking the NMC to do is to go back to the drawing board,” he added.
The Supreme Court on Thursday placed an injunction on the implementation of the new law requiring media owners to seek content approval from the NMC before publication.
Dissatisfied with the new regulations, GIBA filed a suit at the Supreme Court to strike out the new law, arguing that it is not consistent with the 1992 Constitution which guarantees unfettered media freedom.
They claimed that some aspects of the L.I somewhat reintroduces the repealed Criminal Libel Law.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, GIBA President, Akwasi Agyeman, said they were excited about the injunction but their ultimate motive is to ensure that NMC does the right thing.
“We are cautiously happy because the substantive case is still pending.”
Mr. Agyeman also explained that aside the content clause they are also against “the issue of criminalization of media work because part of the regulation says that if you flout the law you could be fined or be jailed up to a term of five years. That is a dangerous clause and we felt that it should also be taken out because the constitution does not allow that free speech be criminalized. So those are some of the issues in there that we had hoped that the NMC would have taken care of before they go to Parliament but they took it to Parliament and after 21 days it became law. And so we had no option than to go to the court because once it became law it was out of our hands to change it and the only body that could reverse it is the Supreme Court and that is where we are now,” he added.
Injunction was excellent
Also expressing his opinion on the injunction on Eyewitness News, ace broadcaster, Paul Adom Otchere, said the Supreme Court’s ruling was excellent.
“The ruling from the Supreme Court is excellent. The kind of ambition the media commission is espousing is going to bring us back to the criminalization of speech.”
<<Print>>