President Ader appoints new media authority head
nullHungary’s President Janos Ader appointed lawyer Monika Karas to head the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH) on Monday.
He made the appointment based on the recommendation of Prime Minister Viktor Orban earlier in the week.
Karas takes the post as of Aug. 19. She replaces Annamaria Szalai, who died in April. Her appointment is for nine years.
Karas earned a law degree at Budapest’s ELTE University in 1985 and took her lawyer’s oath in 1994. She worked at the National Magazine Publishers as a legal advisor from 1985 until 1992 before moving on to the Newspaper Publishing Company, where she was department head and later deputy chief executive.
She was legal advisor to several media outlets including Esti Hirlap, Magyar Forum, Hir TV and Lanchid Radio.
From 1999, Karas was chairperson of the complaints committee of the ORTT, the media authority’s predecessor, for three years and she was a member of the expert committee on copyright from 2000 until 2005. She was a member of the disciplinary committee of the Budapest Lawyers’ Chamber from 2002 to 2003.
The head of the NMHH automatically becomes a candidate for the president of the Media Council, a five-member body which supervises the NMHH, but an appointment requires endorsement by two-thirds of parliamentary deputies.