Practice of Imposing Administrative Sanctions on the Coverage of Public Opinion Polls in the Pre-election Period, 2016
This monitoring report reflects the practice of responding by the Georgian National Communications Commission (GNCC) and courts to violations of the legislative requirements for the coverage of public opinion polls in the period preceding the 2016 parliamentary elections.
The monitoring rests on the analysis of documents which include materials requested from the GNCC and the pre-election media monitoring reports of Media Development Foundation (MDF) which, inter alia, analyses the coverage of public opinion poll results by broadcast and online media outlets.
Although the legislative requirements became obligatory on 8 June, i.e. upon the launch of pre-election campaign, this report covers the period between 22 July and 8 October because the GNCC started to take administrative actions against broadcasters after 22 July, that is the day it warned broadcasters about the necessity to observe the requirements of the law.
