Hassan Al-Sitri
The House of Representatives approved a government draft law amending some provisions of Decree Law No. 14 of 1973 regarding regulating advertisements. According to the project, “Without prejudice to any more severe penalty stipulated in any other law, anyone who advertises without obtaining a license or in violation of a license, or provides incorrect data, or resorts to illegal methods that resulted in obtaining a license unlawfully, or causes obstruction or obstruction to the work of ministry inspectors, shall be punished with imprisonment and a fine not less than one thousand dinars and not exceeding twenty thousand dinars, or one of these two penalties.” Or withholding from the Ministry any data, information, records or documents that it must submit to carry out its tasks prescribed under this law.” The draft law aims to reorganize the advertising sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain in a way that achieves efficiency, protects the sector from harmful practices, and provides effective mechanisms to ensure facilitating obtaining licenses in a rapid and orderly manner.
The penalty shall be multiplied by the number of violating advertisements. In all cases, the court shall order the removal of the violating advertisement and restore the situation to what it was before the violation was committed at the expense of the violator. Anyone who removes, breaks, removes, tears, distorts or destroys a licensed advertisement or part of it shall also be punished with a fine not exceeding one thousand dinars.
Representative Ali Al Nuaimi said: “The punitive policy in the Kingdom of Bahrain is based on the principle of reform and rehabilitation, not on exaggeration in punishment, stressing that raising fines to exaggerated levels is not consistent with the national legislative orientation nor with the social justice on which the state is based,” indicating that the penalties contained in Article 16 of the draft include high sums of money that are not commensurate with the nature of the committed act.
He wondered about the legal basis and legislative standard on which this punishment was based, stressing that the Bahraini legislator is always required to achieve a balance between deterrence and appropriateness, and between preserving the prestige of the law and ensuring the justice of the punishment.
Minister of Municipal Affairs and Agriculture Wael Al-Mubarak responded to him by saying: “The law was issued more than 50 years ago and advertising data has changed, and the judicial penalty allows for the permissibility of taking both penalties, and the purpose of increasing the penalty is to reduce violations, as it threatens the safety of passers-by and human lives, and is not just distorting the view. Imagine that the Capital Municipality alone recorded 11 thousand advertising violations in 5 years.”
Representative Mamdouh asked: The number mentioned by the minister means that 6 violations are committed daily by companies in the Capital Governorate, and this is a large number. Minister Mubarak replied that advertisements are part of the commercial process, and the capital receives the largest volume of advertisements.
