The Council of Europe HELP course on Freedom of Expression was launched for a group of Slovenian lawyers, in a first course launch organised in cooperation with the Slovenian Bar association and the Slovenian Bar academy.

The online launching event was opened by Janez Starman, President of the Slovenian Bar association, and Alenka Košorok Humar, Director of the Bar Academy and member of the Board of the Slovenian Bar association. They stressed the need of flexible education for lawyers, adapted to their particular training needs. In the words of Ms Košorok Humar: »Attorneys should be distinguished for their proficient professional knowledge, broad general knowledge and education in the broadest sense of the word they share with their fellow attorneys and pass on to younger generations, lawyer candidates and trainees.«

Judge Rok Čeferin, Judge at the Constitutional Court of Slovenia, introduced the course participants to the key aspects of freedom of expression as well challenges to freedom of expression in Slovenia. Katarina Zidar, Senior lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights, presented the basic notion of the freedom of expression as applied in the Court’s jurisprudence.

Following the launching event, the course participants will take the course in the upcoming weeks on the HELP online Platform. The course will be moderated by Maša Butenko, Judge and HELP national tutor, who introduced the participants to the course implementation schedule and other relevant aspects of the course implementation. The successful participants to the course will be jointly certified by the Council of Europe and the Slovenian Bar academy.

 

***

The updated Council of Europe HELP course on Freedom of Expression was developed by the Council of Europe Information Society Department, in cooperation with the HELP Programme, and published in 2020. The updated version of the course was developed within the framework of action on “Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media in South-East Europe (JUFREX)”, implemented under the European Union and Council of Europe Joint Programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey II (2019-2022)”.

The course is composed of 4 substantive modules.

· Module 1: Introduction and key principles. Freedom of expression in International law. Key concepts. Restrictions. Positive obligations. Abuse of Freedom of expression. Redress for violations.

· Module 2: Types of speech protected under Article 10. Privacy and defamation.

· Module 3: Media regulation. Freedom of expression online. Freedom of expression and elections. Protection of sources. Information received in confidence.

· Module 4: Access to information. Freedom of expression and protest. Freedom of expression and administration of justice. Freedom of expression in the workplace. Freedom of expression and religion.

The overall length of the course is approximately 9 hours. The course can be taken for autonomous, self-learning in English, French, Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Montenegrin and Serbian.  Users who complete the self-learning course can print out the so-called ‘statement of accomplishment’. Following this tutored course implementation, the course will be available in Slovenian too for self-learning.