The Congress has already activated the mechanisms to make effective the reform of the Congress regulations approved in July with the objective of sanctioning the behaviors of the extreme right agitators accredited in the lower house that for years have boycott the work of the journalists, indicate them on social networks and harass the deputies of the left.
The development of this regulation establishes in writing the criteria for granting accreditations and creates an Advisory Council for the evaluation of the sanctions to whom the standards fail to comply. It also reflects some instructions on the work of journalists who have been dictated in recent years and who will now be the subject of the sanctioning regime approved in the new regulation.
For example, images of the mobile devices of the deputies or the members of the Government or of their documents cannot be taken, which will make recent images such as that of the former socialist director be published reading on his phone the report of the UCO or the annotations of the discourse of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The rule approved by the table also prohibits journalists from making “follow -ups” to the deputies who have refused to give an interview or a statement in the halls.
“The interviews or requests of statements will only occur with the permission of the person interviewed. The representatives of the media must respect said decision, without follow -ups being produced once the questioned, whatever their condition (member of the Chamber, Authority, appearing, appearing or any other person), has decided it,” the agreement says.
The majority of the investiture definitely approved in July the new regulation that seeks to stop the practices that extreme right agitators have been developing with total impunity for years. They are activists linked to pseudomedians such as EDATV or digital journalist, who rectimate press conferences, ask questions without receiving the word shift and have already harass to point out in their social networks with thousands of followers to media journalists when they have reproached their behavior.
To avoid these situations in the future, the groups that support the Government wrote a proposal with a series of sanctions based on the infractions. There are slight, serious and very serious. The latter can lead to the suspension of the accreditation credential between three months and five years or even the definitive revocation of access to the camera.
Among the very serious offenses are respects of respect or courtesy rules in front of other people within the parliamentary enclosure and access zones. “A very serious infraction will be considered in any case to utter insults, disqualifications or attempt against the dignity of other people within the Chamber and in accesses to it,” says the new regulation.
During the summer, the Chamber Services, in collaboration with the Association of Parliamentary Journalists and the Federation of Associations of the Press of Spain, have worked on a development of that regulation, which was approved this Tuesday through an agreement of the Congress table, which just as in July has rejected the PP. According to parliamentary sources, the development of the regulation “responds to the request of the profession to protect them from the episodes of attacks suffered in recent years and that they were denounced without having sanctioning regulations that avoid them.”
The Congress creates with the decision of this Tuesday an advisory council that will be composed of “political groups, official departments and journalist associations.” According to the new regulation, that body will prepare a report on the facts or behaviors that may be susceptible to violation. “Once the report has been prepared or this period has elapsed (15 days), the processing and resolution of the procedure will correspond to the Chamber table, which must designate a person to instruct the corresponding file,” says the regulation.
This advice is composed of the president of the Congress, or the person he delegates, the second vice presidency (which usually corresponds to the opposition), and a member of each parliamentary group. In addition, two journalists appointed by the table will be present at the proposal of the Association of Parliamentary Journalists, “given their most representative entity of the journalists accredited in Congress”, although they will not have a vote. The Secretary General of the Congress and the Director of Communication will also be in that body, which will exercise the functions of Secretary.
“The Council will adopt their decisions following the weighted voting procedure. The people who act on behalf of a parliamentary group may only participate in the vote, and their vote will be weighted according to the number of members of each parliamentary formation in the plenary of the Chamber,” the regulation establishes.
The regulation establishes that it is the table who makes the decision on the sanctions and where appropriate the expulsions.
The development of the regulation agreed specially emphasizes the recording of images and incorporates some instructions that have been issued in recent years. “The activity of the representatives of the media in the Congress of Deputies has so far been regulated by unwritten criteria, admitted and known by all, who established the requirements and spaces in which they could develop their informative work,” says the text to which this newspaper has had access. “These criteria have not been rigid and have been adapted as the media landscape and the new forms of exercise of the journalistic profession have evolved. The significant increase in the informative activity that takes place in the Chamber advises to collect these criteria in a document that is expressly recorded for a better general knowledge,” he adds.
These norms specifically prohibit journalists, who refer as “literary editors”, taking images with their devices. In addition, it specifies that graphic reporters will not be able to record videos, a detail that seeks to separate the activity of photographers and camera operators. .
It also prohibits the capture of images or sounds that “violates personal intimacy or the secret of communications.” “In particular, graphic reporters and television operators will refrain from capturing images of the personal electronic devices of the members of the camera and the government or the content of any document that they use in the course of the parliamentary sessions,” he establishes. Just a few months ago, an image captured by an accredited photographer was news in which Santos Cerdán, former number three socialist, consulted the Civil Guard report that pointed it as a key piece in a corruption scheme with former minister José Luis Ábalos and his former Advisor Koldo García.
Recordings are also prohibited in the following dependencies: “In all coffee shops and restaurants, in areas and offices reserved for parliamentary services, including parking lots, basements, dependencies and administrative spaces and all areas with restricted access without express authorization; in the areas in which that prohibition is clearly indicated; in the areas where security equipment has been installed, in particular in the entrances of the buildings parliamentarians ”. The PP has considered this regulation a “attack on press freedom.”
