Court Rejects Monitor Studio Journalist’s Complaint

Nata Dzvelishvili

On March 21 Tbilisi Appeal Court rejected the complaint lodged by the journalist Salome Tsetskhladze of the Studio “Monitor” and made no change to the January 21 Tbilisi City Court decision.

On July 27, 2011 the journalist petitioned to the Ministry of Culture and Monuments Protection and requested public information about detailed financial expenses for the concerts of foreign musicians in Georgia, indicating honoraria paid to the participants, including Sting and Chris Botti, Chris De Burgh, Placido Domingo, Boney M, Andrea Bocelli, and DJ Maia K.

On the same day the journalist lodged another application requesting contracts and detailed financial expenditures for all of the events organized by the Ministry of Culture from 2009 to June 2011.

The Ministry, said Salome Tsetskhladze, in response to the first application pointed out that the Boney M concert had not been funded by the Ministry and in regard to the rest of the concerts they cannot provide any data, because it is personal information. In response to the second application the Ministry asked the journalist to specify which events she wished to receive the information about.

“Being unaware of the events organized by the Ministry of Culture I sent additional letter requesting the list of events held from 2009 to June 2011. In response they said they have got no such list in place,” said Salome Tsetskhladze reporting to Media.ge. The journalist tried to obtain info on the given issue through another letter of September 19, 2011 requesting total financial expenditure on the concerts held. According to the data provided by the Ministry GEL 1, 390, 473 was spent on MTV concert held with the participation of Enrique Iglesias. The Sting and Chris Botti concert cost the Ministry GEL 1, 264,734.

Chris De Burgh and Andrea Bocelli concerts include honoraria only and no answer can be provided, the rest of the events hadn’t been funded by the Ministry of Culture, said Salome Tsetskhladze.

The Ministry’s refusal to the provision of public information and an incomplete response was first appealed by the journalist at the Ministry following administrative rule. Being rejected the journalist applied to the City Court, but she lost the case. The judge clarified, Salome Tsetskhladze said, that the requested data is personal inviolable information and the Ministry is not entitled to process the information on similar events and run registry.

The decision reached by the court of the first instance was appealed by the journalist at the Court of Appeals but the complaint was rejected again.

Media Legal Defense Center was pleading for Salome Tsetskhladze in the given case.   

Media.ge

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