This Europe: Free press makes full use of lax libel laws

Top channel is Albania's newest, slickest, state-of-the-art television station. It reaches 75 per cent of the population and will go nationwide when new licences are granted this spring.

Set up just under a year ago by Dritan Hoxha, whose fortune was made in coffee, Top Channel shows news, chat, soaps and sport, including the Premiership and Formula One. Like the rest of the media, it operates with little fear of libel.

Albanian law guarantees the right to freedom of expression. When President Ramiz Alia was ousted in 1992, foreign consultants helped to recreate a legal system that had been emasculated by nearly 50 years of Communism. The result: a hotch-potch in which, though technically there is a law of libel, the media can say what it likes with virtually no risk.

"Sure, sometimes the media get sued, but nothing ever comes of it,'' said a prominent lawyer working in the capital, Tirana.

A television journalist alleged recently that the wife of a senior politician was working for the Greek secret service. The allegation has not been repeated. Nor, though, has the channel been sued, and it is not likely to be. But not everything is so easy. Staff at Shekulli, Albania's biggest-selling newspaper, say investigative journalism is difficult because government and police can compel the disclosure of sources, and whistle-blowers are fired.

Journalists at Top Channel hope the station's progress won't be hindered by the Albanian parliament, whose Commission on Media is considering a raft of proposed new media laws that would tighten the rules on defamation.

Top Channel and Shekulli would just not be the same if they had to worry about libel.