Leonid Panov Karapetian’s Case Returned for New Consideration PRAGUE – Of course, it was just a chronological coincidence. On June 30th in Washington, after seven-months-long procrastination, American Senate has approved a new slate of eight presidential nominees to the Board of Broadcasting Governors (BBG), federal agency in charge of the policies and actions of all U.S. non-military broadcasters including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Prague. Discussing the candidates named by Barack Obama, Senator Tom Coburn called BBG "the most worthless organization in the federal government." The same day, June 30th, Armenian journalist Anna Karapetian has received in Prague the decision of the Czech Supreme Court. It overrules all previous, negative for her, decisions of the lower courts in her labor dispute with RFE/RL and sends her case for new consideration from the very beginning. Czech Supreme Court decreed that arbitrary terminations of RFE/RL foreign employees should not be accepted without scrutiny by lower courts. In Washington, American Senate concluded that future BBG should not waste taxpayers’ money by acting without due congressional control. Even if purely symbolic, these coincidences still make one think that internationally circulated indignant letter addressed by Czech Senator Jaromir Stetina to American Senators, "Actions of Radio Free Europe Damage Czech Republic and the United States," was read with due attention not in U.S. Senate only. Otherwise, one is hard put to interpret such a radical turnabout of the Czech Supreme Court where on December 8, 2008, panel of the same tree judges came to a directly opposite conclusion in strictly analog case of Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan v. RFE/RL. By now, Pelivan’s claim against Czech Republic as the country that not only tolerates on its territory national discrimination of several hundred RFE/RL foreign employees but also denies them the right to a fair trial, is already in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. International mass media, including Azg daily, time and again turns to the ongoing scandalous lawsuits brought against RFE/RL by Anna Karapetian and Snjezana Pelivan. Their court cases made a mockery of officially heralded RFE/RL human-rights mission; they also disgraced American Congress that funds BBG and RFE/RL as the instruments of the so-called "public diplomacy." Till now, Czech courts have accepted that American RFE/RL ("human-rights-oriented") is legally entitled to allot its foreign employees status, to use the words of the oldest Czech newspaper Lidove noviny, of "rightless aborigines." Therefore, Czech Supreme Court decision is welcome news. It may change the shameful situation by placing foreign radio station in the Czech Republic under control of Czech laws – just as it was in Germany prior to RFE/RL relocation to Prague in 1995. At the same time, the Supreme Court ruling only raises additionally the success chances of the human rights claim by Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan in Strasbourg – clearly, to the detriment of Czech international standing and against feudal interests of RFE/RL American bureaucracy. However, there is a very simple solution to all those seemingly legal matters. The solution is of diplomatic, i.e. political nature. Stop Playing Ostrich Politics Since the Pelivan and Karapetian cases landed in courts – and in the merciless international mass media – the Czech Republic lived through five successive governments counting the one designated on June 30th. Just another chronological coincidence… Already twice, last year in June and February this year, plenary sessions of the Czech Parliament heard the inquiries concerning Pelivan’s and Karapetian’s lawsuits based on the national discrimination of RFE/RL foreign personnel. The inquiries came from political opposition. As the consequence, two former Czech prime ministers, being either driven by never-ending political infighting in Parliament or fearing negative American reaction, or both, invariably opted for the ostrich-style "don’t-worry-be-happy" political response to the problem at hand. They conveniently refused to bother Washington with request to end discriminative RFE/RL labor policies in the Czech Republic and stop ugly lawsuits by out-of-court settlements. Recently, Senator Stetina suggested exactly the same course of action "End" and "Stop" in his letter to American senators. This is in the interests of the Czech Republic and the USA. This is in the interests of those numerous discriminated foreign nationals in whose 28 languages RFE/RL, which these days celebrates its 60th anniversary, carries out its historically noble mission. There is firm evidence that the new Czech Government will act more decisively. Otherwise, for the years to come, the only beneficiaries of the looming fresh round of endless court battles will be again corporate lawyers together with RFE/RL and BBG bureaucrats. Just as it is now. AZG

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