Representatives of the law-enforcement agencies, civil society, judiciary and Ukrainian Parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Expression and Information Policy visited Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg on 1-4 March 2017. The Study visit “Safety of Journalists: the European Experience” was organized by the Council of Europe Project “Strengthening Freedom of Media and Establishing a Public Broadcasting System in Ukraine”.

In the course of 3 days the participants became familiar with the fundamental principles of Council of Europe’s work and its main statutory bodies and had 14 working meetings with the representatives of the Information Society Department of the Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law, lawyers of the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR), Special Advisor to Council of Europe's Secretary General for Ukraine, and Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the Council of Europe.

The Council of Europe standards in the sphere of media and safety of journalists, their implementation by the Council of Europe member states, and the Council of Europe Platform for the Protection of Journalism were presented during the meetings. Participants discussed in detail alerts on the cases of infringing the rights of Ukrainian journalists that are posted on the Platform and how Ukraine reacted to these alerts. Also the Ukrainian delegation became familiar with the ECHR practice on freedom of expression and discussed with Mrs Olena Dmytrenko, lawyer at the ECtHR’s Registry, the case law on Ukraine related to violations of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The most heated debates were related to issue of establishing the status of a journalist for the purposes of criminal investigation. Mr Pavlo Pushkar, Head of Division of the Department for the Execution of the European Court of Human Rights Judgments presented an expert analysis of the Ukrainian legislation and current situation in the sphere of journalists’ safety. Mr Pushkar also discussed with the study visit participants ways of solving the problem of journalist’s status confirmation during the investigation of crimes against persons that carried out journalistic activities. In the course of the discussions the participants agreed that there are three possible solutions of the mentioned issue: without amending the legislation, create a new case law that would prove that the person who was a victim of the crime led lawful professional journalistic activity and have the appeals courts adopt this practice; introduce either minimal or more fundamental amendments to the legislation after a through comprehensive analysis and review of the criminal legislation provisions.

The study visit engaged 11 participants in the productive discussions that resulted in the enhanced and diverse understanding of the existing challenges in the legislation in the sphere of journalists’ safety as well as its implementation practice. The concrete proposals mentioned above that were agreed on in Strasbourg will be the subject of the further cooperation in Ukraine between the representatives of the law-enforcement agencies, civil society, judiciary and the relevant Parliamentary Committee.