The Platform for the Protection of Journalists: A Mechanism for Cooperation between Non-Governmental Organisations and the Council of Europe

The researched aimed at assessing the Platform for the protection of journalists of the Council of Europe.

Sample

The decrease in journalist safety and media freedom has a negative impact on the rule of law because journalists cannot act as public watchdogs. Its deterioration in Europe during the last decade is a worrying trend for society. The Council of Europe tried to fight against it through the creation of a public Internet-based Platform for the protection of journalism and safety of journalists. The Platform receives alerts from NGOs such as journalist associations as an early warning mechanism. NGOs act as partners and they protect the rule of law from below. A simple search of the Platform permits us to see the many threats journalists face in Europe every day. This paper assesses how the Platform works. It is a positive initiative to co-operate with civil society that has to improve its results mainly through a more effective engagement of the Member States of the Council of Europe.

Main Findings

The increasing attacks on journalists and media freedom pose a serious threat to democracy and the rule of law, as they promote self-censorship and hinder the media role as a public watchdog. This paper explores the concept of ‘the rule of law from below’ from a double perspective. First, journalists contribute to it by keeping authorities accountable for their acts and exposing any wrongdoing to the public opinion because media freedom is a key enabler of the rule of law. Second, NGOs can also contribute to the rule of law from below by protecting those journalists, raising awareness of the attacks they suffer and the subsequent impunity and denouncing any divergence between the activities of States and the international standards that protect media freedom. The paper pays particular attention to an example of the second category: the Platform to protect journalists, where NGOs engage the help of the Council of Europe to push for actions compatible with the rule of law also ‘from above.’ The creation of the Platform was the way for the Council of Europe to make more visible the attacks on journalists and media freedom in Europe, taking advantage of the NGOs in the field and their role protecting the rule of law. They are the ones that know what are the most pressing threats faced by journalists, so the system serves as an early warning for the organisation to respond swiftly through its different bodies. This information is also useful for other organizations such as the EU, the UN or the OSCE.

Policy recommendations/implications

States should do more to ensure the application of Article 10 of the ECHR through the full implementation of the Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)4 on the protection of journalism and safety of journalists and other media actors. One of the advantages of the Platform has proven to be its main weakness: the engagement of the States. What singles out the Platform from other online mechanisms that gather this kind of information and present it to the public is that it is also a bridge to the States contacted to reply to the alerts. However, if States decide to ignore the alerts, half of the purpose of the Platform is missing due to the lack of dialogue. It is necessary to promote the creation of formalised mechanisms to reply to the alerts at least in the Member States where the situation of journalists is worse. The Council of Europe and its Member States need to find a way to work towards increasing pressure to achieve a higher percentage of replies to the alerts and effective measures. In any case, even if the NGOs and the Council of Europe partner to better protect journalists, there is a limit to their reach if States ignore the alerts. The Council of Europe and its partners have to publicise better the Platform to make more people aware of its existence because it is known mostly among experts in this field, but its findings may be of interest to a wider public.