A two-day seminar focusing on the way hate speech is addressed by the European Court of Human Rights’ jurisprudence brought together 22 prosecutors and judges from the Republic of Moldova. The program included discussions on the best legal practices in hate speech case handling and exchange experience and ideas for improving the legal redress responses to discrimination and hatred by the country.
The seminar also covered topics related to the identification of prejudices and stereotypes and working with victims of hate speech. The participants had the possibility to discuss relevant case-law of the European Court of Human Rights with Council of Europe experts and an ECtHR lawyer and take part in interactive sessions, and practical exercises for the application of the ECtHR principles when handling cases.
Participants were provided with relevant training materials, including the 2022 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on combating hate speech, in local language (Recommendation CM/Rec (2022)16).
As concluding remarks, the judges and prosecutors from the Republic of Moldova agreed upon the future directions of work in this area, highlighting the importance of an approach based on dialogue and collaborative solutions by different actors dealing with hate speech and discrimination.
This event was organised in cooperation with the National Institute of Justice of the Republic of Moldova, in the framework of the joint European Union and the Council of Europe project “Strengthening access to justice through non-judicial redress mechanisms for victims of discrimination, hate crime and hate speech in the Eastern Partnership countries”, part of the programme “Partnership for Good Governance II, 2019-2022”.
