The meeting was organized by the Press Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a part of the EU-funded Projects “Building trust in Media in South East Europe and Turkey” implemented by UNESCO and the programme "Reinforcing Judicial Expertise on Freedom of Expression and the Media in South-East Europe (JUFREX)" implemented by the Council of Europe.

The event focused on cooperation between self-regulatory bodies and the judiciary, existent experiences and practices, and was used as a platform for discussion of various common issues such as defamation, hate speech and distinction between value judgments/opinions and facts – relevant especially when delivering court decisions on commentary, news, research text, caricature – cases where the facts and opinions are very often identified and evaluated in the same way.

The event demonstrated synergy of two regional media EU-funded projects implemented by the Council of Europe and UNESCO whose activities are complementary, aiming to improvement of the quality of information on issues of public importance that citizens receive through media.

Having Council of Europe project focused on training of the judiciary in South East Europe on freedom of expression and freedom of the media and UNESCOs work on promotion of media ethics - this joint meeting contributed to establishment of a valuable dialogue and enabled an exchange of experiences and best practices in field of cooperation between judiciary and media actors. The event also raised awareness on the Council of Europe standards relating to freedom of expression and also contributed to better understanding between involved professions.

This event was implemented with the financial assistance of the European Union and the Council of Europe. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.