• • • • cancelled by the court for breach of the licence conditions, but only after it has been issued with two warnings to that effect. Article 20: Publications must depend on legitimate sources of funding, may not receive foreign funding and must provide the Minister with a copy of their annual budget within the first four months of the year. Article 22: Publications must publish a range of information in a prominent place, including the names of the owner and editor-in-chief, the place and date of the issue, the subscription rate, and the name of the printing press or website. The Director must also be informed of any changes to that information. Article 32 also requires the name of the author to be provided. Article 23: The editor-in-chief is responsible, along with the author, for the content of the publication. Article 24: Where the editor-in-chief is absent for up to two months, a caretaker may be appointed, but in case of a longer absence, a replacement has to be appointed. Licences for specialised publications are issued by the Minister (Article 17(b)). Specialised publications cannot publish on topics outside of their areas of specialisation or change their areas of specialisation without the approval of the Minister, on the recommendation of the Director. They must also deposit three copies of every issue with the PPD (Article 26). For publishing outside of the area of specialisation without Ministerial approval, the court may nullify the licence after two warnings have been issued (Article 19(b)). The sanctions noted above in Articles 47 and 48 apply in the same way to press publications as to Article 15(a) entities. Breach of most of the rules described above are covered by the generic Article 47(b) rule (i.e. a fine of up to JD 500). The Article 46 fines (i.e. of twice the amount) apply for breach of Article 20(a), and a failure to provide the budget in breach of Article 20(b) may lead to a fine of up to JD 3,000 and, if it persists, suspension of the publication (Article 46(b)). A first issue is whether or not it is necessary to subject press publications to a licensing or even registration regime, especially in light of the fact that they need to be established as companies. It is clearly established under international law that licensing systems for the print media, which provide for discretion to refuse to issue a licence, are not legitimate. As the (then) three special international mandates on freedom of expression stated in their 2003 Joint Declaration: Registration systems which allow for discretion to refuse registration, which impose substantive conditions on the print media or which are overseen by bodies which are not independent of government are particularly problematical.18 18 18 December 2003, note 9. Jordan: Analysis of the Press and Publications Law, 1998, as Amended - 11