High Council for Communication (Niger)

The High Council for Communication (Le Conseil Supérieur de la Communication, CSC) of the West African state of Niger is a government body which regulates press and media.

Under the First Republic, the Military government of 1974-1989, and the transitional military led Second Republic, there was no press in Niger outside government sources. Consequently, there were no regulatory bodies prior to the press liberalisation which began in 1991-1993.

The CSC was established under the Third Republic, and first began operations in 1994. Its first remit was to provide broadcast licenses for private electronic media, granting its first radio broadcast license to a local affiliate of Radio France International in February of that year. Under the Third Republic, the CSC oversaw the first legalisation of a free press in Niger's history and the creation of dozens of independent newspapers and radio stations. Legalisation of these was established by the a 30 March Ordnance by the new government (Ordonnance 93-29 du 30 mars 1993, JORN spécial n° 12 du 25 juin 1993). On 30 November 1993, authority to regulate and promote low power local radio was hived off to the authority of another committee, the Comité paritaire de pilotage des radios de proximité (CPRP) According to the 1993 laws, all radio frequencies are owned by the government. In 2007 regulations were updated in the same vein. This differentiates commercial from low power community radio, and places the CSC in charge of both. CSC regulations from 2007 includes licensing which bans all purely political or confessional broadcasters.

Following the Coup d'état of 1996, free press was again suspended. With the brief creation of the Fourth Republic, the CSC was formally abolished by Law N° 97-26 of 18 July 1997 and direct oversight of limited media was confirmed in Law N° 98-23 of 11 August 1998.

Under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic (1999), the CSC is tasked as an authority "independent of political power" which is to guarantee equal access to the media by all political forces as well as liberty of the press. Its composition structure and powers, though, are constitutionally dependent upon current law. In 2006, the government adopted its most recent law on the CSC's power and structure (loi n° 2006-24 du 24 juillet 2006). This law mandates that the functioning of the CSC is dependent upon the decrees of the Council of Ministers, which in turn is at the approval of the President of Niger. As such its internal operations now falls under the Ministry of Communication. Between the Coup d'état of 1999 and the creation of the constitution, the CSC was replaced with another agency, the Observatoire nationale de la communication. This organisation was criticised by journalists as being to close to political leaders.

...
Wikipedia