New advertising bill hands wider powers to municipalities ministry

A draft law to update Bahrain’s 1973 rules on advertising, raising fines and widening the powers of
the Ministry of Municipalities Affairs and Agriculture, will go before the Shura Council on Sunday
with the backing of its Public Utilities and Environment Committee.

The committee has endorsed a bill amending certain provisions of Decree-Law No. 14 of 1973 on
the Regulation of Advertisements, attached to Decree No. 8 of 2025, after examining Parliament’s
decision to approve the text and the opinion of the Legislative and Legal Affairs Committee, which
found it sound in constitutional and legal terms. Members also discussed the bill with the
committee’s legal adviser.

The draft contains five articles in addition to the preamble. It replaces references to ‘the ministry’
and ‘the minister’ throughout the 1973 decree-law with ‘the Ministry of Municipalities Affairs and
Agriculture’ and ‘the Minister of Municipalities Affairs and Agriculture’. It rewrites Articles 1, 6, 10,
16 and 17, adds a new Article 14 (bis) allowing certain tasks to be handed to other bodies with
Cabinet approval, and deletes Article 5, which currently requires the minister to form a committee
drawn from the concerned entities to oversee the law. The fifth article is an implementation clause.
According to the memorandum from the Legislation and Legal Opinion Commission, the bill is
meant to reorganise the advertising sector in Bahrain so that it runs more efficiently, is shielded
from harmful practices and has clearer tools to secure licences in a quicker and more orderly way.
The committee, after going through the replacement texts, states that the changes make the law
more suited to the present state of the sector, more than fifty years after the original statute took
effect, while keeping its rules flexible enough to keep pace with new forms of advertising and new
licensing needs.

A large part of the change concerns penalties. Under the revised Article 16, offences would include
advertising without a licence, advertising in breach of licence terms, giving false information or
using unlawful means to obtain a licence, and blocking or disrupting the work of ministry inspectors
or withholding data, records or documents that must be handed over under the law. The bill raises
the punishment for these acts to imprisonment, or a fine of between BD 1,000 and BD 20,000, or
one of these penalties.

The committee notes that advertising reaches the public or groups of people directly and says the
penalties must be strong enough to deter offenders and encourage those covered by the law to act
with care. It stresses that Article 16, as redrafted, leaves the judge room to choose the suitable
punishment within the lower and upper limits, based on the reasons he sees as fitting in each case.
The same article would make clear that punishment is counted for each unlawful advert. Courts
would have to order the removal of offending adverts and the restoration of the situation to what it
was before the breach, at the offender’s cost. The committee sees this as a rule that places the
duty to clear unlawful adverts firmly on those who put them up.

Article 17, as amended, would extend the fine to anyone who removes, breaks, tears, defaces or
damages a licensed advert or any part of it. The upper limit of the fine would rise from BD 50 to BD
1,000. The committee says this new level fits the conduct in question and notes that the old ceiling
was set decades ago and no longer matches the size of today’s market.

The new Article 14 (bis) would allow the Ministry of Municipalities Affairs and Agriculture, with
Cabinet consent, to pass some tasks in the law to other entities. The committee links this to the
practice already in place for building permits, where experienced engineering offices licensed by

the Council for the Practice of Engineering Professions now play a major part in handling
applications. It says that arrangement has sped up service while keeping to the legal standards,
and that the ministry wants to reach a similar point in the advertising field, with rising numbers and
types of adverts, without placing extra fees on citizens.

By repealing Article 5, the bill would also remove the duty on the minister to form a committee to
oversee the application of the law. The committee argues that the regulation of adverts does not, in
itself, require a special committee so long as the bodies named in the law and its implementing
decisions are already obliged to enforce its rules. In its view, leaving the matter in the hands of the
authority in charge of advertising will make the licensing process simpler and more direct.
The report also picks up a drafting point in the preamble. The bill still cites Decree-Law No. 47 of
2002 ‘on the Regulation of the Press, Printing and Publishing’, although that title has been
changed by Law No. 41 of 2025 so that it now reads ‘Decree-Law No. 47 of 2002 on the
Regulation of the Press and Electronic Media’. The committee therefore calls for the reference in
the preamble to be amended to match the new title and mention that it has been changed by Law
No. 41 of 2025.

During its work, the Public Utilities and Environment Committee reviewed Parliament’s decision
and annexes and heard from the Ministry of Municipalities Affairs and Agriculture. The ministry
agreed with the government memorandum and described the draft as a wide step to arrange
advertising activity in line with the kingdom’s urban and commercial growth. It said the bill aims to
order the sector, shield it from random and harmful practices, improve the general appearance of
streets and buildings and make licensing steps more orderly. It added that the bill responds to the
large expansion in advertising and trade over past decades.

The ministry also stated that the draft gives it the right range of powers to inspect and oversee
adverts, including power to remove unlawful adverts and to suspend or revoke licences on a
temporary or permanent basis.

Citing Article 10 (a) of the Constitution, which places the national economy on social justice and
cooperation between public and private activity, and Article 31, which says public rights and
freedoms are ordered by law without touching their core, the committee states that the legislature
is entitled to amend Decree-Law 14 of 1973 in this field. It notes as well Article 20 (a), which lays
down that there is no crime and no punishment except by law, and that no punishment is imposed
for acts carried out before the law that creates it.

On this basis, and after taking the view of its legal adviser, the Public Utilities and Environment
Committee concludes that the draft law before it matches the Constitution and the law. It
recommends that the Shura Council approve the bill amending certain provisions of Decree-Law
No. 14 of 1973 on the Regulation of Advertisements, attached to Decree No. 8 of 2025, and that
the preamble be adjusted to carry the updated title of Decree-Law No. 47 of 2002 as amended by
Law No. 41 of 2025.