The main goal of this article is to research how the protection of journalists' confidential sources is defined in the normative documents of the Council of Europe and the European Union, what is the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, and what is the normative regulation of source protection in Slovenia. The authors state that in the European legal arena it is allowed to demand that a journalist reveal a secret source only exceptionally, when there is intense public interest, and they suggest changes in the Slovenian legislation. Analysis of the relevant legal documents and case law is combined with the method of semi-structured interviews with 15 journalists. The interviewees have different views on whether revealing a confidential source is admissible; the prevalent one is that the promise of confidentiality should be respected unless the circumstances are exceptional.
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