Saeima committee might call on parliament to sack National Electronic Mass Media Council - Kaimins

RIGA - The Saeima Human Rights and Public Affairs Committee might convene this week to decide on an appeal to the parliament to sack the National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP), the committee’s chairman Artuss Kaimins (KPV LV) told journalists after today’s meeting of the coalition cooperation council.

Today, coalition partners discussed issues that have arisen between employees of Latvian Radio and the National Electronic Mass Media Council. The coalition was also informed about the letters the Saeima committee has received from various organizations, including the Latvian Radio News Service, the trade union of Latvian Radio employees, the Latvian Association of Journalists, the Ombudsman and others criticizing the National Electronic Mass Media Council’s performance.

In Kaimins’ words, the Saeima Human Rights and Public Affairs Committee might convene for a meeting this week to discuss all the problems in the presence of the National Electronic Mass Media Council’s members and the committee might call on Saeima to recall the media watchdog’s members.

“I believe that each NEPLP member’s responsibility has to be assessed separately. The law also provides for dismissing individual NEPLP members, not all of them together. Considering the aforementioned, I want to discuss the concerns raised by the organizations in person, which might result in assessing the professionalism of each individual NEPLP member. At present, there is a huge media crisis of confidence and it’s the parliament’s duty to deal with it,” said Kaimins.