Stronger together: Journalists and judiciary safeguarding media freedom during conference in Mavrovo

The conference was organised by Free Press Unlimited and the Netherlands Helsinki Committee with support from the Association of Journalists of Macedonia. The Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to North Macedonia, H.E. Özlem Canel, gave an opening speech, along with Mladen Chadikovski, President of the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, and Ilir Iseni, Acting Director of the Academy for Judges and Prosecutors North Macedonia.

This regional conference was the last of three, the others having taken place in December 2023 in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in October 2022 in Serbia, and served as a conclusion to four years of dedicated efforts in the "Strengthening Media Freedom in Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Serbia" project, which was funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The journalist associations of the three involved countries shared achievements and lessons learned in the first session of the conference. “We spent a year mapping the communication between journalists and the judiciary. It served as a starting point to connect, identify problems, and better understand each other. We set up a permanent task force that implemented a system of 115 contact points for our association within the prosecutors’ office and the police force,” said Tamara Filipović, Secretary General, Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia. 

Borka Rudić, Secretary General, BH Journalists Association, shared: “We worked on enhancing the safety of the media, started a helpline for journalists for legal assistance, and did research focused on the media’s own responsibility, and whether they are implementing safety procedures. As media, we need to be proactive.”

Other sessions discussed disinformation, legal attacks, and impunity, all of which heavily impact the rule of law and media freedom in the region. A round table on SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) examined the threats for journalists posed by these types of legal attacks and explored legislative initiatives designed to address the increasing use of SLAPPs in the Western Balkans. Regarding attacks on journalists, impunity was identified as a major threat. During a session on tackling impunity, speakers discussed its effect on journalists and society at large, noting that when justice is served, this discourages attacks on journalists.

“We investigate cold cases of journalist murders because we cannot let the story die. Not just for their families and colleagues, but for all of our sakes: they guard our access to information and stick their neck out against corruption, crime and abuse of power,” said Jasmijn de Zeeuw, legal advisor of Free Press Unlimited, during the session on impunity. 

The conference also included a workshop, organised by the Netherlands’ Training and Study Centre for the Judiciary, where judges, prosecutors and journalists explored mutual understanding of the roles that media and judiciary play in society and discussed possible ways forward.
 

Moving forward

An important element of this concluding conference was to discuss how to move forward and continue along this path of encouraging legal protection for journalists by fostering dialogue between the judiciary and journalists. "We saw how these dialogues positively impacted the understanding between independent media and the judiciary over the past four years. We believe there is a need to continue and to increase our reach by including more countries like Kosovo, Albania, and Montenegro, to counter the rise in attacks on journalists in the Western Balkans,” said Albana Shala, Senior Programme Coordinator for the Western Balkans at Free Press Unlimited.

More information on our initiative:

Freedom of the media is one of the cornerstones of a well-functioning democracy. Unfortunately, the media sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia is not always able to function safely and journalists have been harassed, attacked and killed for simply doing their job.

Our initiative “Strengthening Media Freedom in Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia” combines training, advocacy and capacity strengthening of the judiciary and media to improve the capacity of the judicial sector to respond adequately to the threats journalists face, whilst at the same time improving the conditions under which the media operates. The Netherlands Helsinki Committee and Free Press Unlimited recognize the wide variety and diversity present in each of the participating countries, which calls for country-specific approaches. We work together with journalist associations - BH Journalists Association (BH Novinari), Association of Journalists of Macedonia (ЗНМ), Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS).