Prosecutors decline action over LRT’s secret recording rules

Lithuania’s Prosecutor General’s Office will not take measures to protect the public interest over LRT’s rules on secret information gathering, LRT reported. An investigation found that the rules could allow journalists to go beyond statutory limits on collecting information about private life and making recordings without consent.

Prosecutors said the provisions could create conditions for unjustified restrictions on the constitutional right to privacy. However, they concluded that imprecise or insufficiently defined wording in an internal policy, without a specific breach of a mandatory legal requirement, did not in itself amount to a direct and substantial violation of the Law on the Provision of Information to the Public or the public interest.

The decision says LRT should revise the relevant provisions to ensure they comply with Articles 13 and 14 of the law and prevent unlawful interference in people’s private lives or breaches of the limits on journalistic activity set by law and the Constitution.

LRT’s policy allows journalists to gather information secretly when there is evidence that the conduct they want to document may show illegal or dishonest actions of clear public interest. It also requires prior approval from a responsible editor.

More than a month ago, the Prosecutor General’s Office asked LRT director Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė for information about the policy. The office sent 15 questions, prompting concern among journalists and national and international organisations about possible pressure on the media and restrictions on press freedom.