According to the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the act, passed on December 30, threatens the freedom of speech and may result in a significant loss of the political impartiality of public media.

5 Changes

The Broadcasting Act in its present form changes the procedure of appointing and dismissing members of supervisory and management boards of public media. In detail, the changes include:

• appointing and dismissing public media executives by the minister of the treasury;
• abolishing open, transparent and competitive procedure for recruiting members of supervisory and management boards of public media;
• removing the authorities’ term limits – they can be dismissed at any given moment by the minister of the treasury;
• limiting the role of the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT), a constitutional body previously responsible for supervising broadcasts, corporate governance and the staff recruitment of public media;
• immediate dismissal of the current executives of public television and radio on the day of the act's adoption.

'Political tool'

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR) published a legal opinion on the new legislation that investigates if amendments meet the standards of protecting human rights. According to the HFHR, the proposed act strengthens dependence of public media executives on the government and violates media pluralism.

As a result, the executive authority may be able to influence the content of public media so that it conforms to the views of the governing majority. The HFHR’s statement emphasizes that "the proposed regulations are contrary to fundamental European standards of the utmost freedom of public media from governmental influence."

"In the statement, we draw attention to the fact that despite earlier announcements, the proposed bill does not improve functioning of public media. It will only worsen the existing ills of how those institutions operate," said Dorota Głowacka, a lawyer at HFHR. "The bill will limit the transparency of how public media executives are appointed, which would impede any social control over that process. As a result, the proposition enables the government to use public media as a political tool in the public debate."

The HFHR draws attention to the fact that, despite the unquestionable relevance and seriousness of the reform in democratic society, the proposed bill was not submitted for any open debate. Moreover, its enactment was so hasty that it was impossible for other relevant bodies to acknowledge it and express any opinion.

The HFHR is also skeptical about the fact that the new legislation will come into force and effect on the day of its announcement.

Just getting started

The spokeswoman for the Law and Justice party (PiS), the party that won the election in October 2015, calls it the beginning of public media reforms.

The next step taken by the MPs would be to define the role of the media, with the purpose is to create "national media" that would undertake a statutory mission.

On December 31, the directors of all public television channels (TVP 1, TVP 2, TVP Info and TVP Kultura) resigned in protest at the changes.

International reactions

The Association of European Journalists (AEJ) urges the Polish government to "resist any temptation to take total political control over media." The organization published an open letter to the Poland's minister of culture. Earlier, a similar statement was issued by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which sent a letter to the marshal of the Sejm. EBU believes that the PiS propositions regarding public media would lead to the loss of political independence.

Representatives of the European Commission also expressed concern over the new public media bill. Before the law passed in the Sejm, First Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans wrote a letter regarding this matter to the minister of foreign affairs, Witold Waszczykowski, and the minister of justice, Zbigniew Ziobro.

Last week, the European Commission activated its rule of law framework for the first time, officially opening an investigation into the state of affairs in Poland and triggering talks to defuse the crisis.

In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Günther Oettinger said: "Many reasons exist for us to activate the rule of law mechanism and for us to place Warsaw under monitoring."