Greece’s Council of State (CoS), the highest administrative court in the country, on Wednesday evening ruled a controversial television broadcast licensing law eagerly backed by the leftist government as unconstitutional.
A majority of CoS justices, 14 to 11, ruled that the law, which transferred jurisdiction from an independent regulatory body to the ministry of state, violated the constitution – given that a constitutional article stipulates that the “watchdog” authority oversees the broadcast sector in the country.
The current Tsipras government has invested a massive amount of “political capital” in pushing through the law and subsequently holding an electronic auction for four national television broadcast licenses, awarded to the highest bidder in a nearly three-day closed-door process.
Wednesday’s plenary session of the CoS lasted for five and a half hours, and was the fifth session to deal with the politically charged case.
According to unconfirmed reports, given that the written verdict has not been published as yet, the majority ruling does not provide a “window of opportunity” for the government to amend the now unconstitutional law while implementing its legislative substance.
Dubbed the “Pappas Law”, after Minister of State Nikos Pappas, its most vocal proponent and the primary target of opposition and media criticism, the four licenses brought in bids totaling roughly 250 million euros.
Two out of the six or seven national broadcasters won one of the four licenses, with two well-known Athens television stations, Alpha and Star, failing to acquire to license.
The low number of four nationwide digital terrestrial licenses was the recommendation of a single study commissioned by the Tsipras government with an institute at an Italian university (Florence), a result that generated severe derision and ridicule by current broadcasters, the political opposition and press unions, among others.
The government’s reaction, via its spokeswoman, was fuming.
“Nothing will impede the government’s volition to impose order on the television (broadcast) landscape,” spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili said in a televised late-night statement.
She also took aim at the high court ruling, saying that the same body, the CoS, ruled that the bailout memorandums (I and II) with creditors were constitutional, similar to a ruling on the PSI ‘haircut’ that wiped out nominal values of Greek bonds held by investors.
She also bemoaned the fact that the 255 million euros the government expected to receive will not be listed on the state budget, “…money that society needs”.
