RULES OF PROCEDURE ON MEMBERSHIP AND
MEMBERSHIP FEE FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF
JOURNALISTS OF MACEDONIA
Article 1
Scope
On the basis of Chapter III, Articles 11-20 from the Statute of the Association of
Journalists of the Republic of Macedonia (hereinafter AJM) these Rules of Procedure
more precisely define the conditions, criteria and procedure for admission to and
termination of the membership to the AJM in addition to the membership fee amount.
Membership to the AJM may be regular, associate and honorary.
A member may be any person who practices journalism and meets the additional
criteria stipulated for admission to regular or honorary membership. Hence,
journalism implies:
-
-
Publishing written, spoken, visual or online articles: reports, news, comments
(notices or write-ups, social chronicles, articles, reviews), critiques, cartoons,
essays, interviews, reportages, travel journals, text comments as well as titles,
announcements and editions;
Text editing
Editorial work in the print and electronic media, news agencies and internet
portals
Informing by photography, electronic image, films and cartoons published by
professional photographers, cameramen and cartoonists, but only if that is
their main occupation.
Should a dilemma arise regarding the treatment of the occupation that may or may
not be regarded as journalism, the interpretation of the International Federation of
Journalists applies, i.e. their list of positive and negative enumeration.
Article 2
Regular membership criteria
Any journalist may be admitted to the AJM provided that:
- he/she has practiced journalism for at least one year
Associate membership criteria
Associate members are people employed in public services, educational, scientific,
cultural, commercial and other kinds of institutions, publicists etc. who periodically
practice journalism or former regular members whose membership due to the
reasons stipulated in the Statute of AJM has permanently or temporarily become
associate.
Associate membership implies membership to the AJM which concerning the rights
and obligations is equal to the regular membership excluding the right to elect or be
elected in the AJM bodies and to decide upon the Statute of the AJM. They are
entitled to use the AJM funds in conformity with the acts pertaining to those funds, as
well as to enjoy the benefits provided by the AJM and IFJ. The associate member is
entitled to voice and express opinions and points of view concerning the work of the
AJM bodies, to use the legal protection provided by the AJM as well as to possess
an AJM membership card.
The associate membership is valid until it is automatically transferred into regular
full-fledged membership with a regular amount of the membership fee in conformity
with the provisions governing the membership fee amount.
The procedure for admission to associate membership is equal to the one stipulated
for regular membership, whereas the membership fee amount is stipulated in the
same manner as for the regular members.
Criteria for honorary members
Honorary members may be admitted to the AJM with a decision adopted by the
majority of members of the Management Board. Foreign citizens may also be
honorary members.
An honorary member of the AJM may be a person who is not a journalist by
profession, but, nonetheless, has significantly contributed to the work or
development of AJM due to the endeavors or cooperation with the AJM.
Honorary members are entitled to monitor the work of the AJM Assembly but they
are not entitled to have their representatives in the AJM Assembly or to participate in
the decision-making.
Article 3
Manner
Admission to membership may be on the basis of:
- a request for admission (written statement - application form)
- an invitation for admission
Article 4
Procedure for admission following a request
The request for admission is submitted by the potential member to the Membership
Committee established by the Management Board.
The request (written statement – application form) is accompanied by a certificate
proving professional engagement, curriculum vitae (CV) and two photographs.
By virtue of the written proposal by the Membership Committee, the Management
Board of the AJM decides upon the submitted request for membership with a
majority of votes and presents the adopted request for verification at the regular
annual Assembly of AJM.
The Management Board may reject the request for membership to any person who
meets the official membership criteria, but, nonetheless, due to other justified
reasons pertaining to his/her conduct or public image or acting contradictory to the
provisions of the Code of Journalists may be anticipated to inflict damage to the
reputation of the AJM and its operations.
The person whose request for membership has been decided upon is notified about
the outcome in a period of 7 days upon the decision adopted.
The person whose request for membership has been included on the agenda for
session of the Management Board may be invited to attend the session.
A person whose occupation is not regarded as journalism in conformity with the
standards and definition of the International Federation of Journalists may not be
admitted to the AJM. This entails:
- Publication of legal, social, administrative, organizational and marketing works
- Proofreading, correction, stenography and typewriting, archiving-documenting
of supplying, sorting and storage of media documents
- Presenting, announcing and hosting activities in electronic media
- Announcers, speakers and anchors in electronic media
- Tone recording, video recording exclusively with studio cameras, montage of
sound, film and video recording
- Editing newspapers of associations, when its not considered a main
occupation and when the employment contract does not explicitly include
journalist work only, for example: spokesperson
or public relations,
production of commercial items, acquisition of advertisements, reading
commercial texts in electronic media etc.
- Writing articles about comics, horoscopes, charts and other similar columns,
compiling and translating for all the media, using already published texts for
the web pages
- Editing and writing columns or shows with expert’s advice (e.g. medical, legal,
technical, social, household hints, etc.) and especially editorial work in
magazines intended only for a specific profile of professionals as well as work
in advertising trade magazines the purpose of which is popularization,
advertising, sales and marketing animation of customers of goods and
services
- Work of the spokesman and other similar works with informative content,
scientific, cultural, economic and other institutions
- Only occasional and appropriate publication of articles
Article 5
Procedure for admission following an invitation
The Management Board may send an invitation for membership to AJM to the
person that at the session of the Management Board was decided that he/she meets
the membership criteria and should there be a justified interest in admission to
membership due to reasons which would be beneficial for the AJM.
The procedure for admission following an invitation is identical to the one stipulated
under Article 4 of these Rules of Procedure.
Article 6
Termination of membership
The membership to the AJM terminates in the following cases:
 If the member voluntarily leaves the AJM and returns his/her membership
card.
 If the member does not pay the annual membership fee for more than one
year.
 If the member does not fulfil his/her obligations arising from the AJM
membership.
 If the member loses the professional ability or if there is an effective criminal
sentence which makes the member unworthy of the AJM membership.
Article 7
Termination following a request
The membership to AJM terminates at the request of the member, i.e. by leaving the
AJM voluntarily and returning the membership card.
The member is not obliged to give an explanation about the request.
The member requesting termination of his/her membership to the AJM may not be
exempt from his/her outstanding payments nor is entitled to a proportionate return of
the payments settled pertaining to a future period when the membership terminates.
Article 8
Termination due to non-payment of membership fee
The membership to AJM terminates due to non-payment of the annual membership
fee upon the expiry of the twelve-month-period that the membership fee refers to;
.......................................
Article 9
Termination by exclusion
The member may be excluded from membership due to reasons prescribed by law,
the Statute, the Code of Journalists, on the basis of a recommendation given by the
Court of Honor and/or the Management Board, upon a decision adopted by the
Assembly of AJM.
The reason for exclusion must be elaborated.
The person that the exclusion refers to is entitled to a reply by the Management
Board in a period of 3 days.
The exclusion of a member may be decided upon in the course of an extraordinary
session of the Assembly.
Article 10
Automatic termination
The membership to AJM is automatically terminated if the member loses his/her
professional ability or if there is an effective criminal sentence which makes the
member unworthy of the AJM membership.
Article 11
Suspension
By the time of verification of the request for voluntary termination of membership or
termination by exclusion, the activities of the member are suspended.
Membership fee amount and payment
Article 12
Upon admission to the AJM, the person pays (OR DOES NOT PAY) a one-off
membership fee amounting to ………………. with/without calculated VAT in denar
countervalue. The payment obligation pertaining to admission membership under
paragraph 1 of this Article does not relate to those members that have the status of
members at the time of adoption of these Rules of Procedure.
Article 13
The annual membership fee is defined into two categories and is governed by the
fact whether the journalist is employed in a national, regional or a local medium and
whether he/she has the status of a correspondent.
- The first category of annual membership fee amounts to 20 Euros with/without VAT
in denar countervalue and is paid by journalists employed in a national or a regional
medium.
- The second category of annual membership fee amounts to 10 Euros with/without
VAT in denar countervalue and is paid by the journalists employed in a local
medium, journalists that have the status of correspondents or freelancers.
Article 14
The membership fee is payable against issued invoice and the amount for the
current year is paid once per annum, by the end of April at the latest. This amount
may be paid in cash or to the bank account of AJM.
For those members that are admitted to AJM in the course of the year, the
membership fee is calculated respectively according to the months left over in the
current year, starting with the beginning of the forthcoming month since the day of
admission to AJM.
Article 15
The one-off payment made when becoming a member to AJM, as well as the annual
membership fee, by virtue of a decision adopted by the Assembly, may be subject to
adjustment – increase at an appropriate rate, and for the purpose of covering and
adherence to the disparity caused by an inflation annual rate for the current year.
Article 16
Membership Register
The Membership Register is kept by the Membership Commission.
The Register is kept both electronically and as a hardcopy.
Every entry and write-off /deletion in or from the Register is chronologically recorded.
The records are upgraded on a regular basis.
The Register contains personal information about any member, including his/her
personal identification number, address of residence and compulsorily the email
address that shall be used in the communication between the AJM and the member
as well as for purposes of electronic voting. In addition to the aforementioned, the
Register may contain other information for the purposes of statistical processing
(type of medium, formal education, nationality, sex, region, etc.)
This Register is not a publicly available book to any third parties with the exception of
public office bearers in conformity with the law or another mandatory enactment.
In a period of 48 hours, the members are obliged to notify the Membership
Commission in the event of changes to their personal information, in particular
changes to the email used for communication and voting purposes.
Article 17
Final provisions
Any amendments and modifications to these Rules of Procedure are made following
the same manner and procedure as for their adoption.
The request for amendments and supplements to these Rules of Procedure may be
submitted to:
-
The President of the Management Board
The members of the AJM – by initiating a proposal to the work groups
Article 18
These Rules of Procedure come into force on the day of their adoption.
Skopje, --.--.2010