On Friday, 21 April, the signing ceremony of the Grant Agreement between the JUFREX and the Judicial Academy of Republic of Serbia was convened in Belgrade. The Grant Agreement was signed by Tim Cartwright, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade and Nenad Vujic, Director of the Judicial Academy of Republic of Serbia.

The European Union and the Council of Europe joint programme "Reinforcing Judicial Expertise on Freedom of Expression and the Media in South-East Europe (JUFREX)"  is a three-year, regional project, implemented in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and Kosovo*[1]. It started in April 2016 and will end in April 2019.

The overall objective of the project is to promote freedom of expression and freedom of the media in line with Council of Europe standards, with a specific focus on the Judiciary in South-East Europe.

The Grant Agreement envisages implementation of activities with the aim to enhance the application of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case-law in the field of freedom of expression in the daily work of the judiciary, to strengthen the capacity of national training centres, judges’ and prosecutors’ academies to train legal professionals on the ECHR, the case-law of the ECtHR and other European standards on freedom of expression and to increase the awareness and capacity of judges, public prosecutors dealing with freedom of expression issues on CoE standards and the case-law of the ECtHR.

From May 2017 to December 2018, in total 26 activities (trainings and workshops)  will be organised for judges and prosecutors from different towns/courts and prosecutorial offices in Serbia, training materials will be prepared and curricula on freedom of expression integrated into plans of national judicial training institution.

[1] This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.