(PINA/IFEX) – Fiji’s Minister for Information says proposed new media laws in Fiji are unlikely to include licensing of news organisations or journalists. Seruwaia Hong Tiy said media licensing is not recommended by a report by two British consultants reviewing the laws and is not the current practice in Fiji. “The Cabinet sub-committee is still […]
(PINA/IFEX) – Fiji’s Minister for Information says proposed new
media laws in Fiji are unlikely to include licensing of news
organisations or journalists. Seruwaia Hong Tiy said media
licensing is not recommended by a report by two British
consultants reviewing the laws and is not the current practice in
Fiji.
“The Cabinet sub-committee is still meeting but that is the
position now,” Hong Tiy told a gathering of journalists in Suva
on 6 December 1997. “We must be free,” she said, adding that her
ministry’s submission to the cabinet media laws sub-committee
makes no mention of licensing.
The Ministry of Information invited the views of Fiji news
organisations before making its submission. Members of the
Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) strongly pushed for the
continuing development of a free, pluralistic and professional
news media in Fiji.
The cabinet sub-committee, chaired by former Information Minister
Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, is studying the report by the consultants
engaged to review all of Fiji’s media laws.
The consultants’ recommendations included replacing the Official
Secrets Act with an Official Information Act, and abolishing a
Press Correction Act. Both acts were inherited from Fiji’s former
British colonial rulers. The consultants also recommended
expanding the present self-regulatory Fiji News Council by
bringing in more public members. This would ensure that a wider
cross section of the community is represented, Hong Tiy said.
“Right now it is sort of confined to the people in the industry.”
Hong Tiy said that once the cabinet sub-committee finishes
deliberating, it will submit its report and recommendations to
the full cabinet for a decision.
Fiji returned to an elected government in 1992 after two 1987
military coups. It once again has among the most free and
developed news media in the Pacific Islands. Nevertheless, as
newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations
increasingly reveal corruption and questionable practices by
people in public office, some politicians have called for tougher
media regulations and “accountability”.
