Activity Details (ID# 12570)

Activity Synopsis

The general objective of the seminar was to present to the judges from Moldova the general principles developed by the European Court of Human Rights concerning Article 10 of the ECHR and its application as regards defamation, insult, criticism of public figures, privacy, incitement to hatred, access to information, protection of sources, state secrecy and whistle-blowing.

Besides this general objective, there was also a particular practical objective to examine two case studies related to defamation and State secrets and prepared by the two CoE experts, namely Mr Vincent Coussirat-Coustère, Professor in public law at University Lille II (France), and Mr Panayotis Voyatzis, lawyer at the registry of the European Court of Human Rights.
 

The seminar was very well organised. Various Council of Europe documents concerning freedom of expression, translated into Romanian, were distributed to the participants (Case law concerning Article 10 of the ECHR, a number of Recommendations concerning freedom of expression adopted by the Committee of Ministers).

The experts’ presentations were informative and provoked active participation on the part of judges in the discussion. The participants were especially interested in presentations and cases concerning defamation and criticism of public figures, as these topics are particularly sensitive in Moldova.

The participants were very motivated and interested by the presentations of the experts. They took the opportunity to ask questions about European judicial systems and the mechanism of functioning of the ECHR. During the seminar, the participants discussed two Moldovan cases concerning freedom of expression and information judged by the European Court of Hunan Rights.

During the seminar, it appeared that participants’ knowledge about the ECHR in general and especially Article 10 was quite limited. This was the reason for their relatively passive participation during the discussions. The Council of Europe experts were excellent and made very interesting presentations. During the role-play exercises, the experts tried to involve the participants in the discussion. They asked very simple questions about the hypothetical cases presented in order to help them to better understand Article 10 and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights.

During the discussions, it was stressed that legislative improvement (especially as concerns defamation) and training of professionals should be undertaken in order for CoE standards to be adequately applied in Moldova.
 

At the end of the seminar, an evaluation questionnaire was distributed to the participants. According to the replies, most participants were interested in Article 10 case law and in ECHR issues in general. They were of the opinion that Article 10 and the ECHR in general needs to be concretely applied and that existing protection of human rights in general, and freedom of expression and information in particular, was insufficient. They suggested further follow-up activities, expressing their wish to continue this kind of trainings, in order to become more familiar with the ECHR and to be able to apply in their daily practice the principles developed in the case law related to Article 10. Another suggestion was to organise a visit of Moldovan magistrates to Strasbourg to attend a hearing of the European Court of Human Rights. 

about 30 

Mr Vincent COUSSIRAT-COUSTÈRE, Professor in public law at University Lille II (France); Mr Panayotis VOYATZIS, lawyer at the registry of the European Court of Human Rights. 

Mr Eugen CIBOTARU, Media Division, DG-II.