Pemra Law Amendment Bill 2023 on the cards
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The government has decided to make legislation related to media regulation, 24NewsHD TV channel reported on Thursday.
According to sources, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has prepared the Pemra Law Amendment Bill 2023 and will present it in the National Assembly.
The insiders said the decision is made to clip the powers of the Pemra chairman under the amendment bill and one member will be added to the authority.
According to the proposed draft, the journalists and media workers will be able to complain to a council about non-payment of salaries and other such issues.
Under the amendment bill, the media owners will be bound to pay salaries within 60 days and the TV channels will not be given government ads for non-payment of salaries.
As per the new law, fake news and disinformation have also been defined and the condition to bar the broadcast of disinformation was added to the code of conduct for the TV channel
The council will be formed in the federal capital and the provinces and the council will consist of a chairman and five members, the proposed amendment stated, adding that the tenure of this council will be two years while the representatives of PBA and PFUJ will be part of it.
Under the new law, the channels will be fined up to Rs 1 million for violating the code of conduct and up to Rs 10 million for serious violations.
The council will decide to suspend the licence of a channel or close it down while the PEMRA chairman will not have the authority to either ban or suspend the channel’s licence, the proposed bill said.
The suspension of the licence will be decided by Chairman PEMRA and two members of the Authority with the approval of the council.
The bill also suggested the duration of the advertisement will not exceed 5 minutes during the regular programme and during the two breaks in the programme, the duration of the advertisement will be 10 minutes. The decisions of Pemra can be appealed only in the High Court of the province.
Reporter: Awais Kiyani