The experts of Media Law Institutewere preparing to the regional seminar in Kharkiv. The main theme of theseminar is the problems of the judicial system coverage, judicial reforms andcourt trials.

One day seminar relieson journalists from Kharkiv as well as from other cities of the region. It isplanned to discuss the whole set of questions on courts’ activity coveragethrough media. Also, there would be additional opportunity to present resultsof the analysis in the course of the project and to get answers fromjournalists. Besides, Kharkiv is the city with strong traditions of journalismand local conflicts.

According to the data ofthe analytical report, experts of Media Law Institute determined exact set ofquestions, which should be discussed during the seminar. Among them:

– protection ofjournalistic sources;

– access to the courtand court trials;

– dissemination ofinformation about the court and the judge;

– right to a fair trial;

– practice of theEuropean Court of human rights.

Also, it is planned todiscuss questions on national judicial system (structure, jurisdiction, ruleson the court hearing etc) and demonstrate film «Acquaintance withthe court», produces in the course of the project «Ukraine: the rule of law».

In the course of thepreparation for the seminar there were prepared invitations for media, spreadthrough the mailing list of Media Law Instituteand Internet pages of our partners (Telekritika, UNIAN and others).

Besides, due to thelimited abilities in regions to have access to the Internet, there wereprovided direct mailing of invitations to local Kharkiv press and press inneighboring regions.

Taking into account urgencyand significance of the topic, Media Law Institute was supported by the KharkivHuman Rights Protection Group, which agreed to join organization of the seminarand to take active part in it. At the time of the report, Media Law Institutereceived applications from Kharkiv, Poltava, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Kuiv andOdessa regions.