10 November 2021 - In his introductory speech given at the opening session of the 27th "Petar Simonetti" symposium of legal professionals held on-line on 10 and 11 November 2021, President Dr Šeparović emphasized the importance of this gathering, which more than two decades successfully brings together legal experts, as well as a high quality of corresponding collection of papers. He also offered his congratulations to the organizers, the Rijeka University, Rijeka Faculty of Law, Croatian High Administrative Court and Croatian Notaries Chamber on the 27 successful events.
Deputy President, Dr Snježana Bagić, participated in a panel on obligation law and presented recent jurisprudence of the Croatian Constitutional Court on the freedom of expression and the right to compensation for damage. She emphasized that in the protection of rights in Art. 38 of the Constitution and Art. 10 of the European Human Rights Convention, the Constitutional Court explicitly accepts the standards of the Strasbourg Court on the admissibility of interference with the right to expression, and in assessing the violation of this right it examines "each individual case in the light of all the circumstances, including the content of the disputed allegations as well as the context in which these allegations were made", and in particular, whether the measures undertaken to restrict the freedom of expression were proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued by that restriction. In relation to the freedom of press, as one aspect of the freedom of expression, she pointed out the well-established case-law of the Croatian Constitutional Court, adding that this freedom enjoys rather broad freedom of protection, but is conditioned by journalists' acting in good faith in line with the ethics of journalism.