At the two-day cascade training, organized by the Centre for Education of Judges and Prosecutors of Republika Srpska, held on 15-16 November 2018, the main topics were defamation and hate speech off and online from the perspective of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as from the local case law. After the introductory lecture of Sanja Stojisavljević Tadić, the public district prosecutor of Banja Luka, on the key elements of Article 10 of the ECHR on Freedom of Expression, a Judge of the District Court in Banja Luka, Amir Kapetanovic, dealt with the application of a three-part test, through analysing the verdicts of the European Court and the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The participants of the seminar – judges of the municipal and district courts from Banja Luka, Bijeljina, Gradiska, Zvornik, East Sarajevo, Doboj, and participants from the Republika Srpska Prosecutor's Office – actively discussed on cases of defamation of local courts and the examples from the court practice of the ECHR. The topics of the second day of the seminar led by the Council of Europe international expert from Croatia, Ms Sandra Bencic, was hate speech and mock trial, based on a recent case from Croatia, were performed.

The seminar was organised within the framework of the joint EU/CoE project “Reinforcing Judicial Expertise on Freedom of Expression and the Media in South-East Europe (JUFREX)”, within cooperation between the Council of Europe and the Centre for Education of Judges and Prosecutors of Republika Srpska.

This event was implemented with the financial support of the EU and the Council of Europe. Attitudes and opinions presented do not necessarily reflect official attitudes of the European Union.