Activity Details (ID# 5822)

Activity Synopsis

The general objective of the training seminar was to present to the judges from the regions of Georgia the general principles developed by the European Court of Human Rights concerning Article 10 of the ECHR and its application as regards defamation, insults, criticism of public figures, privacy, access to information, protection of journalists’ sources and state secrecy.

The specific objective of the seminar was to examine and discuss two case studies directly related to the explained themes. The cases had been prepared by the CoE experts, namely Mr Gérard van den DUNGEN, vice-President of the Court of Appeal of Zwolle (the Netherlands) and Mr Frédéric GRAS, a practising lawyer from the Paris Bar.
 

The seminar was well prepared. A booklet on the case law concerning Article 10 of the ECHR translated into Georgian was distributed to the participants among other information documents. The participants showed a great interest in the content of the booklet.

The participants were judges from the regions. One of them is currently sitting in Tbilisi, but is adjudicating cases from Abkhazia. They were interested in the themes presented by the CoE experts since their knowledge of the ECHR case law was quite limited. They were particularly interested in questions related to defamation of public figures and judges.

During the discussions, it was pointed out that the notion of state secrecy is rather vague under Georgian law. During the practical cases, there was a very lively exchange of points of view. The judges showed a fairly good understanding of the criteria applied by the European Court of Human Rights.

 

At the end of the seminar, an evaluation questionnaire was distributed to the participants. According to the replies, most participants were very satisfied with the organisation and the content of the seminar. As regards the duration of the seminar, they suggested there should be more time for discussion. They expressed their wish to take part in similar activities in order to improve their knowledge of the ECHR, in particular Articles 5, 6 and 11 of the Convention.

 

Judges from regions of Georgia

 

Mr Gérard van den DUNGEN, judge (The Netherlands)
Mr Frédéric GRAS, attorney-at-law (France)
 

Alessia SONAGLIONI, Media Division, Directorate General of Human Rights