Lidetu Ayalew, Chairman of EDUP-Medhin

Lidetu Ayalew is chairman of the Ethiopian Democratic Unity Party (EDUP-Medhin) and a member of parliament. While most parties took sides on Tuesday when voting on the Mass Media and Freedom of Information Proclamation, his party EDUP-Medhin abstained.

He argues that the proclamation has many improvements over its predecessor. And yet, his party abstained.

He explains his reasons for abstaining to Senior Reporter Bruck Shewareged. Excerpts:

Unlike opposition parties that voted against the media law, or EPRDF (the ruling party) and its allied parties that voted in favour of it, you abstained. Why?

We have two reasons for abstaining. First, we had been engaged in dialogue (with the ruling party) about the press law. We had reached agreement on most of the issues. On some of the issues, we haven't reached an understanding.

We agreed later that when the draft bill was referred to the Legal and Administrative Affairs Standing Committee, some improvements would be made. That was our understanding. However, after parliament referred it to the committee, the bill was returned without any change. I mean, there were no changes on the issues which we disagreed with.

One of the basic difference that we have with the ruling party has to do with access to information on issues of national interest, i.e., there are information that cannot be disclosed to the public due to national interest.

Government can place restrictions on the dissemination of some of the information that have to do with national security. But the document (the law) classifies such information as ones that can be "prohibited" from being disclosed. There is no clear provision as to the prohibition. Are such information prohibited from being disclosed by the public relations (PR) offices of government institutions only or by journalists as well? Had the Freedom of Information Act and the press law been presented separately, this might not pose a serious problem  for us. However, since the two laws are issued jointly, it has become unclear whether those prohibited information are to be withheld by public relations officers alone or journalists as well. This has to be made clear.

We also need to know what demarcates "prohibition" from "exemption". We believe that such information should be exempted, not prohibited. When we asked the originators of the draft law about the intention of this provision, they told us that it was intended to serve as an exemption. We told them that if that is the case it must be worded as "exemption". The government PRs can withhold the information. But it means that if a journalist gets access to it, he can publish it.

If the information is "prohibited," then even if the journalist obtains that information, he cannot publish it. They said that they agreed with us in principle, and made a promise that the wording would be changed from "prohibition" to "exemption". But when the bill was tabled to the House for voting, these words were deliberately not changed. If there is no change in the wording, then all the exempted information are going to be in effect prohibited and cannot be printed on newspapers. So, under these circumstances, we could not support the law.

Then, what prompted you not to vote against it?

A lot of time had been spent on discussing the document. Unlike other documents, the government and opposition parties discussed the bill in two round of sessions. A lot of improvements have been made on the original draft law although the confusions I just mentioned have not been dealt with. The document, generally speaking, is conducive for journalists.

The problem with it is that it doesn't comprehensively address all the issues related to press law because a number of press issues have already been dealt with by different laws. For instance, there is the proclamation re-defining the duties and responsibilities of the Ministry of Information. We opposed the law because it confers on the ministry the power to supervise press-related issues. Given that the ministry is involved in managing newspapers itself, how can it fairly supervise other rival press products? It is under these circumstances that the new law came into effect.

If you see the law by itself or if you compare it to other countries' law, it is further ahead, especially compared to previous laws.

Which one? Press Proclamation No.34/1992? Or the original draft press law first proposed in February 2003?

It is better than both of them. Substancewise, it is much better than both Proclamation No. 34/1992 or the original draft.

The new Mass Media and Freedom of Information Proclamation No. 590/2008 gives the public relations office of government institutions a 30-working day period to respond to a request for an information. It even entitles the office to reject the request. So how can that be an improvement?

First, the 30-day limitation applies only to ordinary citizens. But for those involved in information dissemination - journalists and the like - it is ten days.

But your request can be even turned down?

Well, you can take the offender to court. Denying a citizen information without adequate reasons can be punishable by law. A PR office cannot deny anyone access to information for no reason. Here, during the process of drafting the law, other countries' experience was taken into consideration, and it was decided that a10-day period was reasonable enough. It doesn't mean that it is going to take you ten days to get that information; only that it sometimes might take you ten days to get it.

This still does not a guarantee that persons seeking information will get it after ten days.

Within the ten-day time span?

Yes.

They will get it within ten days. If not, there is a procedure available for them, telling them how they can take their case to the court. The law explicitly provides that no one can be denied information without adequate reasons. By the way, this provision was included in the draft law during our discussion and before it was submitted to parliament.

Then what problems do you see in it?

It is not comprehensive enough. In addition, it is lumped with the Freedom of Information Act. Because of this lumping, the concepts of "exemption" and "prohibition" cannot be clearly delineated. The law is also unduly susceptible to interpretation. So on our part, we found it necessary to neither support it nor vote against it. If has many constructive aspects to it. At the same time, however, it is deliberately made to be vague in some respect, too. That's why we abstained.

On Tuesday, the Chair of the Legal and Administrative Affairs Standing Committee of the House said that no opposition party was able to successfully argue why it is undesirable to package the press law and freedom of information act in a single document. Why weren't you able to do that?

If you attended the parliamentary session on [this] Tuesday, I tried to address the issue that the Chair talked about. But I was interrupted in the middle of my speech by the Speaker. This was what I was trying to explain.

We believe that it is harmful to have both laws in one document. If fact, its use has not been successfully argued for. What the originators of the law said was that it makes the law "accessible". Does lumping the two laws into one necessarily make it accessible? If both laws are issued separately and put into a single shelf, what makes it difficult to be accessible? Do they necessarily have to be stapled together to be accessible? I think not.

The harm done as a result of lumping the laws is that, first, this format does not make it easy to have clarity. As a lawmaker, you have to follow a standard format. Except for Sweden, taken by the originators of the law as a model, other countries issue the two laws separately.

Their contents are different. One regulates the media industry, the other defines and regulates the government's duty to provide information to citizens and media personnel. These are two different things. From a technical point of view, amalgamating these separate issues into one does not make sense. And formatwise, it has its own problems.

The other harm, which has to do with substance, is that it implies that the so-called prohibited or exempted information that public relations offices are not allowed to give out cannot also be used by journalists. Those prohibited information might be understood to be also prohibited to journalists too. Had the two laws been issued separately, the prohibited ones would be limited to PR offices. That is why we think that the two laws were deliberately lumped into one law. That's why we have reservations. That's why we found it inappropriate to vote for it.

If we voted against it, it would have been interpreted as opposing the whole content of the law, which was not the case for us. That is why we abstained.

There is a law providing for foreign nationals of Ethiopian origin to participate in the economy and other sectors except in defense, diplomatic service, security and politics. But the law issued this Tuesday bars them from owning any media outlet, including newspapers, thus effectively amending the law mentioned above. What is your party's stand on this?

Well, that law has to do with the investment law. The law gives them [practically] unlimited right to participate in the economy.

But we have to ask ourselves the question: Is engaging in press activities purely an economic venture only? It is a bit difficult to give a straight answer. It is also a political as well as a rights issue.

In my opinion, unless the law is changed to allow double citizenship, I don't think limiting the involvement of foreign nationals of Ethiopian origin to the economic sphere only will be a problem. I believe that we should be cautious about national security. So limiting ownership to locals only will not be problematic.

How about the provision as regards limitation on ownership for locals, namely prohibiting the owner of one newspaper from owning more than a 15-percent equity in another newspaper?

Well, we believe that it is proper for the law to limit ownership to one enterprise in the broadcast business because the resources are limited. There are limited frequencies, and they need to be distributed fairly.

But we don't believe such limitation should extend to the print press. This is not a limited resource. We don't oppose ownership of three or four newspapers by a single person as long as he is able to manage it. The two issues must be been seen differently. Limiting newspaper ownership doesn't make sense.

Officials pride themselves on adopting the best experiences of other countries while drafting the law. But others argue the experiences were picked "very selectively" to fit the drafters' purpose. What do you say about this?

In principle, it is good to learn from others' experience. But what kind of experience do you take? Sometimes, a single experience, in fact, an exception, is taken from one country, and our officials would claim that this is not something new, others have been doing it and so on if it serves their purpose. But that experience might be an exception instead of the norm. The experience common in the majority of the countries would be ignored if it does not fit what they have in mind.

When we criticize policies, we also mention others' experience as a parameter. So we are not free from sticking to others' experience also.

As regards the Mass Media and Freedom of Information Proclamation, it is not bad if you compare it with the similar laws of other countries. The various aspects of this law are scattered in such different laws as the broadcast law, investment code, Criminal Code, etc. But in terms of substance there is one positive side to it. The information act is a big commitment which the government has put itself into. This is a big step. The implementation might something different.

You said earlier that there is big improvement in the new law and that it is conducive for media personnel. Apart from the one element you raised earlier, can you tell me other positive aspects?

Well, the first one is the information act. Previously, the duty of PR offices in government institutions to provide information to ordinary citizens or journalists was not explicitly provided for by the law. So the experience was that most of the time, they tended not to give any information whatsoever. I believe it is very important that this obligation has been incorporated in the new law.

The second one is that this law overrides the provisions of the broadcast law. It ensures the rights of all citizens to engage in radio, televisions and press businesses.

The third one is that the provisions dealing with arrest have been entirely deleted from the proclamation.

The original version of the draft press law had more than sixty "don't dos." This one is far more focused on telling you the rights that you have.  The "don't dos" in this one are far less than the previous one, about nine of them only.

The fact that government officials can be held accountable for failing to provide information without adequate reason is an important step ahead. Denying citizens information used to be taken for granted. This, according to the law, is about to change.