Focused Committee of the action “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media in North Macedonia” for legal professionals, held its second hybrid meeting to tackle achieved results and discuss forthcoming activities involving legal professionals. The meeting organised in the framework of the joint European Union and Council of Europe Horizontal Facility II programme, gathered key representatives from the Council of Europe Programme Office in Skopje, the EU Delegation in Skopje and the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors and the Bar Association of North Macedonia as key partners under EU / CoE joint action “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media in North Macedonia” (JUFREX).
Lejla Dervisagic, Head of Operations of the Council of Europe Programme Office in Skopje, opened the meeting by pointing out the important work done through this action towards European standards on freedom of expression. She expressed her support to the action’s team and the Council of Europe’s commitment to support the upcoming activities and respond to the needs of the beneficiaries and partners.
Sanja Frkovic-Gelevska, Programme Manager on Freedom of Media, Information Society and Culture, in the EU Delegation in Skopje, in her welcoming address emphasised the importance of the EU / CoE joint JUFREX action. As she noted, this co-operation enables structured dialogue with institutions and helps citizens to obtain knowledge and experience as the Republic of North Macedonia is undergoing the necessary steps of EU accession. She pointed out that this action is a strong pillar in the field of freedom of expression in North Macedonia, creating links in the co-operation of all independent bodies working in the field, such as the courts, public prosecution offices, the independent media regulator as well as the civil society.
Aleksandra Bogdanovska, Senior Project Officer of the Freedom of expression and freedom of the media in North Macedonia” (JUFREX), shortly elaborated the implemented activities and their results and elaborated on the upcoming activities. She also emphasised the importance of the collaboration among the legal professionals and their representative institutions within and beyond this action.
Natasha Gaber-Damjanovska, Director of the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors, spoke on the actual results achieved through the action and reflected in the level of preparedness of judges and public prosecutors, who are trained under the action on methodology and practice that helps them in cases related to Article 10 of the European Convention for Human Rights (Freedom of expression). She expressed her gratitude for the support of the JUFREX action provided not only in form of training and education, but through important materials such as is the relevant case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that are translated in Macedonian language and made available for the legal professionals across the country. “In this way we are bringing the European standards home and we hope to continue doing so in the future”, she added.
Jelena Ristikj, Vice-President of the Bar Association in North Macedonia, reflected on the activities completed so far under the JUFREX. She said that the knowledge gained by lawyers under this action is of outmost importance, and it helps them apply European standards on freedom of expression, as well as ECtHR case-law in their everyday work. Future co-operation with this action is key for building the capacity of the Bar Association as it is in its final stages of preparation of the Centre for Education of the Bar Association that shall ensure systematic solution for continuous education of lawyers with final goal of ensuring high-quality legal aid for the citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia, concluded Ristikj.
In this meeting, once again it was confirmed that JUFREX remains dedicated to address the needs and requirements of its partners concerning freedom of expression as one of the key human rights in a democratic society in the upcoming future as well.
The action “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media in North Macedonia” is part of the joint European Union and the Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.
