Defamation cases are the most commonly used as strategic lawsuits against public participation - SLAPPs. This remains an important and regular subject of capacity-building sessions for the judiciary. Furthermore, since the re-criminalisation of defamation in Republika Srpska last year, new challenges arose in terms of the application of these provisions whilst maintaining the principles of protection of freedom of expression, as stipulated by the standards of the Council of Europe, primarily Article 10 of European Convention of Human Rights, and the caselaw of the European Court for Human Rights.

In a training session organised by the Council of Europe in Teslic on 26-27 November, 20 judges and prosecutors gained new knowledge on the recent anti-SLAPPs standards including the Council of Europe's Recommendation CM/Rec(2024)2 on countering the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), as well as the European Union  Directive (EU) 2024/1069 on protecting persons who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded claims or abusive court proceedings (SLAPPs). Through case studies, participants discussed indicators to identify SLAPPs cases. Moreover, a recent study providing an analysis of the Western Balkans countries’ legal systems, exploring the options for the integration of the anti-SLAPP mechanisms,  “Regional Baseline Assessment of Legislative and Policy Needs for Implementation of Council of Europe and European Union Standards on countering the use of SLAPPs”, produced within the PROFREX regional action, was presented to them. They had the opportunity to provide feedback regarding its recommendations. The capacity-building session was organised in collaboration with two entities’ Centers for Judicial and Prosecutorial Education.

The action “Protecting freedom of expression and of the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina (PROFREX)”, within which the training was organised, is implemented by the Division for Co-operation on Freedom of Expression of the Council of Europe and is part of the joint European Union and the Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye”.