9 December 2022- At the final meeting of Steering Committee of the action “Freedom of expressions and freedom of the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina” (JUFREX 2), a part of the joint European Union and Council of Europe programme Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019 - 2022, that was held online – the research Analysis of the defamation case-law in Bosnia and Herzegovina was presented.
The research showed that court decisions in defamation cases made between January 2019 and March 2022, demonstrate more consistent application of the European standards set in Council of Europe documents and a case-law of European Court of Human Rights. Around 60 court decisions of all court instances in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) were analysed (Constitutional Court of BiH, both entities Supreme Courts, as well as first and second instance courts in the country). The study shows progress in all segments that were earlier (between 2015 and 2019) identified as problematic, such as understanding the difference of facts and value judgements in case proceedings, setting a high damage that had a “chilling effect” for freedom of expression, and balancing of the right to freedom of expression and to protection of privacy. Also, the study shows that almost all analysed decisions, even if they do not quote case-law of European court, still apply all relevant criteria in the reasoning.
Analysis has also pointed to the segments where additional, more streamlined and in-depth training is still needed. This will be the basis for the organisation of the follow up training sessions that are planned in the next stage of the action, as of 2023.
In addition, the participants of the closing event, representatives of local institutions, implementing partners of Council of Europe - Centers for Judicial and Prosecutorial Training, Bar Associations, representatives of media regulatory authority – Communication Regulatory Agency, and BiH media self-regulatory body Press and Online Media Council, presented from their perspective, the most important results of JUFREX. Improvement of the capacities of the local partners was emphasised, along with the importance pf regional co-operation, particularly from the perspective of media regulation.
All participants agreed that continued systematic and multisectoral education of all professional groups involved in JUFREX is still a necessity, whereas the topics for the continued collaboration should be hate speech prevention and suppression, protection of journalists and co-regulation in the sphere of digital media.
The event was organised within the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, and its action on “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina (JUFREX)”.
