Activity Details (ID# 6167)

Activity Synopsis

The Media Law Advocates Training Programme (MLAP) is dedicated to the training of lawyers in questions of media litigation, with a special emphasis on legal action before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The European system of human rights has increased its importance in the area of the media in recent years. The incorporation of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe into the Strasbourg system highlights the relevance of offering specialist training to lawyers from the region.

The courses offered at this summer school dealt with defamation and libel, access to information legislation, use of human rights arguments and litigation before ECHR, case law of ECHR concerning media, licensing and administration of licensing, Internet, legal and business aspects of media practice (Television without Frontiers Directive, national approaches to media regulation, hate speech, copyright, public service broadcasting). 

Participants received instructional materials when they arrived in Oxford. Prior to their arrival they were sent an email with links to relevant websites.
During the training, PCMLP organised one of the first symposia after the UK Communications Bill became law. The one day Symposium focused on the Bill and considered policy and law issues arising more generally in the media, communications and internet sectors.
The programme also included a moot exercise focused on a media related case before the European Court of Human Rights.

As part of the evaluation, participants were asked to fill in a structured questionnaire (slightly modified each time) at the end of each of the three weeks of the programme. Twenty-five out of 25 responses were achieved on each occasion. Overall, 93.08% of responses rated the summer school as excellent or good.

An unstructured evaluation was carried out midway through the programme. The group was divided into three sections and for thirty minutes discussed three questions:
• What do you like about MLAP?
• Is there anything you do not like about MLAP?
• Do you have any specific suggestions for improvement?
The participants were very positive about the programme in terms of the relevance of the topics covered, the content of lectures and the teaching. The participants reported that all the lectures they attended were relevant to their interests and had been easy to follow. The lectures which they found most beneficial, both in terms of absorbing the information and from a more practical point of view, were the ones that used PowerPoint or overhead slide presentations. The general diversity of the programme was seen to be a crucial element of its success. Participants appreciated the balance between the theoretical and practical approaches to the various issues. All were pleased that lectures were given by a range of experts and, in particular, that they were not given only by academics presenting a theoretical perspective but also by practicing lawyers, media lawyers and those working in NGOs.

Participants were very supportive of the objectives of the Media Law Advocates Training Programme. They appreciated the opportunity to get together with practitioners from other, similar countries, thus enabling them not only to gain and intensify their knowledge of the Council of Europe’s human rights system but also to learn from each other’s systems and experiences. 

Participants were very supportive of the idea of creating a network that would enable them to continue to share ideas and future experiences. The e-mail list of this training is being merged with the list from last year’s programme so that all participants can keep in touch. 

Lawyers from South-Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Russia 

Damian Tambini, David Goldberg, Danilo Leonardi, Dirk Voorhoof, Like Clements, Christian Sandvig, Judith Gore, Ian Brown, Julian Petley, Peter Krug, John Bayer, Benoit Frydman, Isabelle Rorive, Wolfgang Schulz, Tarlach McGonagle, Vicky Twigg-Prosser, Alistair Bonnington, Bernd Holznagel, James Michael, Rosalind McInnes, Audri Mukhopadhyay, Andrei Richter, Katherine Gundersen, Bernd Holznagel, Julian Midgley, Lorna Woods, Monroe Price, Andrea M. Matwyshyn 

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