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Lifting the ban fine, but fix
media law too
The Nation - Nairobi
EDITORIAL
06. Feb. 2008
Finally, the Government has lifted the month-long ban on live
media broadcast, following calls and protests from various
quarters. Subsequently, a case that had been filed in the High
Court in Nairobi by the Editors Guild was withdrawn, as it had
been overtaken by events.
To be sure, the ban has been the subject of bitter contest between
various players and the Government. The Opposition, lobby groups
and even the international community have been categorical in
their resolve to have the ban lifted on the ground that it was an
infringement of Kenyans’ constitutional rights. In fact, lifting
the ban on live media coverage was one of the resolutions made
last week at the Kofi Annan-led mediation talks.
Whereas we applaud the Government for lifting the ban, there are
more fundamental issues to deal with. Specifically, the media
industry and Kenyans should not go to sleep thinking that all is
well. The bad law empowering a minister to ban live media coverage,
hence deny the public of their fundamental right of expression,
still remains in our statutes. Any rogue minister in the future
can still use and infringe on our rights.
This means that the next round of the war is the campaign to
expunge that anachronistic piece of legislation from our law books.
Informal discussions with Information and Communication ministry
officials indicate that they are also keen to have that clause
deleted. We exhort them to take the earliest opportunity to push
that through Parliament.
The converse, however, is that there are valid concerns in various
quarters about the media’s performance. That there are occasions
that the newspeople go overboard and broadcast items that border
on incitement. We submit that the recently-established Media
Council of Kenya needs to be strengthened to regulate the media
and deal with such procedural matters. This is the very reason why
the media have also opposed plans by Information minister Samuel
Poghisio to set up a taskforce to investigate how they covered the
last elections.
The freedom of expression is an integral ingredient of democracy.
Any law or edit that negates that is anachronistic, therefore,
must be annulled. We count on the 10th Parliament to look at those
draconian and dictatorial laws and delete them.
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