Autumn course on media law finally went ahead in January
- Details
- Published: February 9, 2021
From 25 to 29 January 2021, the last of four one-week autumn courses took place as part of the “Supporting young legal talent in Armenia 2020” project, which was financed by the German Foreign Office.
45 students from four Armenian partner universities in the project took part in the event on media law, which had to be postponed at short notice until January 2021. These universities were:
- the Faculty of Law at the Yerevan State University,
- the French University in Armenia,
- the Armenian-Russian University and
- the American University.
Just like the previous courses, this event also took place in a hybrid format, with participants in Armenia attending in person in a conference room and the two German experts and IRZ representatives joining them online.
The Permanent Representative of the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Armenia, Klaus Wendelberger, opened this last event in the series of autumn courses. He underlined the role of the media as a “fourth power” and emphasised the complex and yet important legal framework. Other welcome speeches were given by Frank Hupfeld, IRZ Head of Section, and Prof. Gagik Ghazinyan, Dean of the Law Gaculty at Yerevan State University.
Anahit Manasyan, a lecturer in the department of constitutional law at the law faculty at Yerevan State University and Vice Dean of the Academy of Justice of Armenia went on to give a lecture on the “fundamental issues with media law in the Republic of Armenia”.
Just as for the previous three autumn courses, the first three days of the one-week event were taken up with lectures and discussions. This theoretical part of the course was followed on the last two days by practical work on cases in groups. The students took an active part in the discussions and worked together enthusiastically.
The following speakers from Germany took part in the event:
- Dr. Jörg Ukrow, LL.M.Eur., Managing Director of the EMR (Institute of European Media Law) and Deputy Director of the media authority for the federal state of Saarland
- Tobias Sommer, LL.M, a lawyer at the “Sommer” law firm, specialising in industrial property rights, copyright law & media law
The themes for the autumn course were:
- An introduction to media law
- references to European law and constitutional law
- the dual broadcasting system in Germany
- media operators: their registration, financing and supervision
- protecting young people from the media
- fake news and disinformation as a legal issue
- protecting diversity in the media
- Private press and media laws, media laws in the legal system for intellectual property
- General privacy rights and legal protection with regards to the media (prohibition of censorship; claims arising from violating property rights and privacy rights; dispute proceedings)
- Laws governing print and visual reporting; introduction to copyright (significance of copyright; copyrighted works, copyright contract law; ancillary copyrights (protection period)
Three other autumn courses had already taken place as part of this project. These covered the following topics:
- human rights, 9 to 13 November 2020
- European law: 16 to 20 November 2020
- constitutional law: 23 to 27 November 2020
- The project was overall a great success and was met with a great deal of interest from the students. This is particularly remarkable in view of the current political developments in Armenia.
About the project
The “Supporting young legal talent in Armenia 2020” project was financed by the German Foreign Office to support the “Development of the partnership with civil society in Eastern Partnership countries and Russia”. The project was aimed at law students, who will play a key role as disseminators in shaping the future justice system in Armenia. The four one-week autumn courses taught young people about four key areas of the law: human rights, constitutional law, European law and media law. Discussions and workshops focussed on the basics of these areas of the law and their application within the Armenian legal context.
