Activity Details (ID# 4997)

Activity Synopsis

The objective of the seminar was to present to the judges and prosecutors from the Nis region the general principles developed by the European Court of Human Rights concerning Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its application as regards defamation, insult, incitement to hatred, access to information, protection of sources, state secrecy and whistle-blowing. Case studies on defamation and insult of public figures were discussed with the participants.

 

The seminar was very well organised. Council of Europe documents concerning freedom of expression, translated into Serbian, were sent to the participants before the seminar (Case law concerning Article 10 of the ECHR, Media and Elections, Declaration and Recommendations concerning freedom of expression adopted by the Committee of Ministers and Conclusions of the Regional Conference on Defamation and Freedom of Expression organised in Strasbourg, 17-18 October 2002). Ms Tamara Luksic-Orlandic, Deputy Minister for Culture and Information, opened the seminar and took the opportunity to explain to the participants the reasons for the state of emergency proclaimed by the Serbian Government.

The media coverage of the seminar was extensive because in the same week the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided to invite Serbia and Montenegro to become a full member of the Council of Europe. The two biggest local TV stations were present at the opening of the seminar and broadcasted statements from Ms Tamara Luksic-Orlandic and the Council of Europe experts in their main news bulletins. The Council of Europe experts were invited to appear on a television programme in order to explain the importance of the ECHR.

The participants were motivated by the experts’ presentations but their knowledge about the European Convention on Human Rights was very limited and this was the reason for their relatively passive participation during the discussion on the first day of the seminar. The second day they were more active and took the opportunity to ask questions about the European Convention in general and particularly the functioning of the European Court, since one of the experts present was a judge at the European Court of Human Rights. The second expert was from the Netherlands and he presented the Dutch judicial system to the participants as well as Dutch cases concerning freedom of expression and information.

During the role-playing exercises, the participants were very active and demonstrated that they had assimilated in theory the methodology and criteria applied by the Court as described by the experts during their presentations, but they need more training and knowledge to be able to apply the Convention in real cases.
 

In general, the seminar was successful. The conclusion of the evaluation questionnaire distributed to the participants at the end of the seminar was that most participants had never attended such a seminar and that they knew little about the European Convention of Human Rights and the workings of the European Court of Human Rights.

The participants expressed their wish to become more familiar with the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the Court and to be able to apply these standards in their country, especially in light of the future accession to the Council of Europe.

Another regional seminar for judges and prosecutors will take place in May 2003 on the same topic in the Novi Pazar region.
 

Ms Tamara Luksic-Orlandic, Deputy Minister for Culture and Information
18 Judges from the Nis Region
9 Public Prosecutors from the Nis Region

 

Ms Margarita Tsatsa-Nikolovska, Judge at the European Court of Human Rights
Mr Gerard Van Den Dungen, Judge, Court of Appeal, Arnhem (the Netherlands)

 

Ms Lejla Dervisagic, Media Division, Directorate General of Human Rights
Ms Ljiljana Breberina, Programme Adviser, CoE Office in Belgrade