Pursuant to Paragraph three, Article 60 of the Electronic Mass Media Law, the National Electronic Mass Media Council (hereinafter – Council) has been granted the following competence in the field of electronic mass media: the Council shall develop and approve by normative regulations the National Strategy for the Development of the Electronic Mass Media Sector. The National Strategy for the Development of the Electronic Mass Media Sector shall be an external normative act.
The procedure for inclusion of the program in the list of retransmitted audio and audiovisual programs in Latvia is specified in Section 2 of Annex 5 of the National Strategy for the Development of the Electronic Mass Media Sector for 2018-2022 (hereinafter – the Strategy), issued pursuant to Article 19 of the Electronic Mass Media Law.
Clause 6 of Annex 5 of the Strategy states that if the program owner, the program owner’s representative or the EMM wishes to include the program in the list of retransmitted audio and audiovisual programs in Latvia (hereinafter – Program List), the program owner, the program owner’s representative or EMM submit to the Council:
Upon receipt of the documents, the Council examines them at the Council meeting and informs the program owner or the program owner’s representative or the EMM about the decision taken (Clause 7 of Annex 5 of the Strategy).
In the event that when reviewing the documents referred to in Clause 6 of Annex 5 of the Strategy, a lengthy determination of facts is necessary, the Council may extend the issuance of an administrative act under the terms of the Administrative Procedure Law by notifying the program owner or the program owner’s representative or the EMM (Clause 8 of Annex 5 of the Strategy).
Pursuant to Article 64 of the Administrative Procedure Law, if an administrative matter is initiated on the basis of a submission, an institution shall take a decision regarding the issue of an administrative act within a month from the day the submission is submitted.
If due to objective reasons it is not possible to comply with the one month time period, the institution may extend it for a period not exceeding four months from the day the submission is submitted, notifying the submitter thereof. If a lengthy determination of facts is necessary, the institution with which the administrative act may be appealed may extended the term for the issuance of an administrative act up to one year by a reasoned decision notifying the submitter, but in the absence of such a higher institution or it is the Cabinet of Ministers, the decision shall be taken by the head of the institution issuing the administrative act. The decision regarding extension of the time period may be disputed and appealed. The court shall hear the complaint in writing.
Clause 9 of Annex 5 of the Strategy defines the procedure for drawing up the necessary documents. The specified documents shall be drawn up in accordance with the Regulation No. 558 “Procedures for Drafting and Formatting of Documents” of the Cabinet of Ministers of September 4, 2018. Documents drawn up in a foreign language must be submitted in the state (Latvian) language, namely:
In its turn, Clause 10 of the Section 3 of Annex 5 of the Strategy determines the existence of an electronic registration system (hereinafter – System), which is established and maintained by the Council for the electronic mass media which retransmit audio and audiovisual programs. This System shall ensure equal and non-discriminatory rules for the retransmission of audio and audiovisual programs for all EMM.
The System consists of two parts:
1) EMM Register, which retransmits audio and audiovisual programs (hereinafter – Register), in which the following information is entered (specified):
2) List of audio and audiovisual programs to be retransmitted in Latvia, which shall contain the following information:
The EMM is responsible for the truthfulness of the information provided to the Council as set forth in Article 201.5, Paragraph 7 of the Latvian Administrative Violations Code. The Council shall, when monitoring the EMM or otherwise take any action necessary to monitor them, refer to the information submitted in the System by the EMM.