Activity Details (ID# 5028)

Activity Synopsis

The objective of the seminar was to present to judges and prosecutors from the Chernigiv and Soumi regions 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 insult of public figures, state secrecy and protection of sources were discussed with the participants.

 

The seminar was very well organised. Various documents about the Council of Europe in general, the European Court of Human Rights and freedom of expression were distributed to the participants (Council of Europe - 800 million Europeans, European Court of Human Rights - organisation, proceeding and rules, Short Guide to the ECHR, Case law concerning Article 10 of the ECHR, European standards concerning free elections, European standards concerning freedom of expression). The Head of the Ministry of Justice Department and the Deputy Head of the Administrative Council of the Chernigiv region opened the seminar. Journalists from Chernigiv and Soumi regions were present at the beginning of the seminar and interviewed the experts.

The participants were highly motivated and very interested by the experts' presentations. These presentations generated lively discussion on how to implement the principles of Article 10 in cases concerning freedom of expression and information adjudicated by the Ukrainian courts, as well as on the difficulties which may arise in this respect, given the fact that Ukrainian legislation is sometimes not in line with, or even contradicts, the principles defined by the European Court of Human Rights.

The local and international experts underlined the importance of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and tried to explain to the participants that they could apply the ECHR directly even when the national legislation is not in line with European standards.

Given the fact that most of the participants had already attended seminars on the European Convention on Human Rights, they were very active during the role-playing exercises and demonstrated that they had in theory assimilated the methodology and criteria applied by the Court.

 

In general, the seminar could be considered a success. An evaluation questionnaire was distributed to the participants at the end of the seminar. The general conclusion was that most participants had attended some seminars on the ECHR and had learned about the case law of the ECHR. On the other hand, they were conscious of the fact that Article 10 and the ECHR in general need to be concretely applied and that existing protection of human rights in general, and freedom of expression and information in particular, was insufficient.

This seminar was the 9th regional seminar for Ukrainian judges. During the course of the previous seminars it became apparent that the judges fell into two categories: those who had little knowledge of the case law of the ECHR and those who, having attended some seminars, were well informed about the case law of the ECHR and had started to apply it. The general conclusion is that the regional seminars were very productive and it would be useful to continue such activities. Some follow-up seminars may be organised in 2004-2005.


 

Judges from the Chernigiv and Soumi regions 

Ms Monstserrat Enrich-Mas, Lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights
Mr Frédéric Gras, Barrister, France
Ms Valeria Lutkovska, Government Agent of Ukraine before the European Court of Human Rights
Mr Yuriy Zaicev, Editor in Chief of ''Case law of the European Court of Human Rights''
 

Mr Olexander Pavlichenko, Director of the Information Office of the Council of Europe, Co-ordinator of the Action Plan for the Media in Ukraine
Ms Lejla Dervisagic, Media Division, Directorate General of Human Rights