The experts of Media Law Institute were preparing to the regional seminar in Kharkiv. The main theme of the seminar is the problems of the judicial system coverage, judicial reforms and court trials.

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

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

- protection of journalistic sources;

- access to the court and court trials;

- dissemination of information about the court and the judge;

- right to a fair trial;

- practice of the European Court of human rights.

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

In the course of the preparation for the seminar there were prepared invitations for media, spread through the mailing list of Media Law Institute and Internet pages of our partners (Telekritika, UNIAN and others).

Besides, due to the limited abilities in regions to have access to the Internet, there were provided direct mailing of invitations to local Kharkiv press and press in neighboring regions.

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