The Academy of Justice in close cooperation with Reinforcing Judicial Expertise on Freedom of Expression and the Media in South East-Europe (JUFREX) project, organised a two-day training on balancing exercise on defamation cases.

This training helped participants to understand the legal nature of freedom of expression as well as to analyse the constitutional and legal provisions in force. The trainers presented the clash of freedom of expression (Article 10) with the protection of privacy and reputation (Article 8). Moreover, the notions of reputation and defamation (civil and criminal) have been defined and disscused during the training sessions.

All participants had the opportunity to widen their knowledge via practical and concrete examples on how to deal with court cases related to freedom of expression and also how adapt and use the practice of the ECHR in the local court cases.

The role of judges and prosecutors on protection of freedom of expreesion and the media was another topic discussed during the training, which session was followed with lively discussions.

A sufficient space was devoted to the work in groups, where participates were activly engaged in elaborating exapmples from the ECHR practice. Both judges and prosecutors were encorraged to refer the ECtHR judgements when dealing with similar local cases, in order to make meritorious decision regarding the cases of this nature.