Activity Details (ID# 11627)

Activity Synopsis

The aim of the seminar was to present to the lawyers 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. This seminar was the second and last seminar for Montenegrin lawyers in the framework of the Second Joint Initiative between the European Agency for Reconstruction and the Council of Europe.

 

The seminar was opened by the President of the Lawyer’s Association of Montenegro which was the partner of the Council of Europe in organising the seminar. The representative of the European Agency for Reconstruction was also present at the seminar. The participants received a number of Council of Europe documents concerning freedom of expression translated into their language (the European Convention on Human Rights, the series of Recommendations and other texts of the Committee of Ministers in the media field, as well as the Montenegrin Media Law, Broadcasting Law and Public Broadcasting Services Law). These documents allowed them to compare existing national legislation with European standards.

Many local and national TV stations were present at the beginning of the seminar and transmitted the event in several news programmes.

The participants were interested in the experts’ presentations.

The discussion mostly focused on defamation and judgements of the European Court of Human Rights concerning defamation. The participants wished to know the penalties for defamation in France (one expert was a barrister from France) and other European countries (the second expert was a lawyer from the European Court of Human Rights). They said that there are a large number of defamation cases in Montenegro and journalists are often condemned. Unlike the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the Montenegrin legislation does not make a difference between writing articles and information and transmission of information and articles by others. The prison sentence for defamation has been removed from the Montenegrin Penal Code but if the journalist/editor does not pay the fine, the fine is replaced by a prison sentence (1 day of prison for every 45 euros). Given the fact that journalists are not always very professional when they write articles, prison sentences are a real possibility, especially for those journalists who are repeatedly taken to court.

During the role-playing exercises, the participants were very active. The experts prepared cases inspired by real cases from the Court (Media Group v. Ukraine and Plon v. France) which corresponded very well to Montenegrin reality.
 

Despite the fact that the seminar was requested by the Montenegrin lawyers, there was not a large number of participants. The general conclusion was that the majority of the lawyers present were not aware of the importance of applying the European Convention on Human Rights in their practice. This seminar and this kind of activity could be a good beginning.

All participants expressed their wish to continue being trained.



 

Lawyers 

Ms Onur ANDREOTTI, Lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights
Mr Frédéric GRAS, Barrister, France
 

Ms Slobodanka KARISIK, Adviser, Council of Europe Office in Podgorica
Lejla DERVISAGIC, Media Division, Directorate General of Human Rights