A round - table discussion on Social Media and the Judiciary was organised in order to discuss the existing standards and the best practices on social media and ethics on 13 April.

The meeting focused on freedom of expression and ethics in social media. The event provided a platform where the Office of the Independent Inspector and the Ethics Commission of the Georgian Bar Association shared their experience, existing practices and the main challenges faced during reviewing cases on ethical matters in social media. Cross-cutting issues among judges’ and lawyers’ profession were discussed as well.

The development of social media platforms has created new challenges for bodies responsible for ethical standard setting. Consequently, the meeting aimed at presenting examples of the judicial bodies from the Council of Europe member states and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights that would lead to enhance capacity of the meeting participants.  

The discussion was organised by the Council of Europe project “Support to the Judicial Reform in Georgia” funded by the voluntary contributions of Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, the Slovak Republic and Sweden to support the implementation of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia 2016-2019.