A new European law against SLAPP lawsuits, or malicious lawsuits aimed at intimidating people acting in the public interest, has officially entered into force across the European Union. Member States, except for Denmark, have had to harmonize their national legislation with the rules of Directive (EU) 2024/1069.
The term SLAPP comes from the term Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation and refers to lawsuits brought by powerful individuals, companies or political actors not to achieve justice, but to exhaust journalists, activists, academics or other critics with lengthy and expensive court processes. In such cases, the goal is often not the judgment itself, but financial and psychological pressure that would lead to silence or giving up public action.
According to CASE, the Coalition Against SLAPP Lawsuits in Europe, 166 new SLAPP cases were registered in 2023, bringing the total number of cases since 2010 to 1,049 in 41 European countries. Most of the lawsuits related to the topics of corruption and environmental protection, while companies, entrepreneurs and politicians were among the most frequent plaintiffs.
A number of famous cases have shown the scale of the problem. Italian journalist Federica Angeli, who investigates organized crime, faced more than 120 lawsuits. In France, companies linked to the Bollore group sued multiple media outlets and NGOs for reporting on alleged land grabbing in Cameroon. A common feature of such processes is a marked imbalance of power between plaintiffs and defendants.
The new directive introduces several important protection mechanisms. Courts will be able to reject clearly unfounded lawsuits already at an early stage of the proceedings, and the burden of proof will shift to the plaintiff, who must demonstrate that the case has a legal basis. If it is determined that it is a malicious lawsuit, the court can order the plaintiff to bear all the costs of the proceedings, including attorney’s fees and any damages caused to the defendant. Additional sanctions for abuse of the judiciary are also foreseen.
The directive also deals with so-called “forum shopping”, a practice in which prosecutors choose jurisdictions that are more favorable to them. Judgments handed down in third countries in proceedings that are judged to be unfounded or malicious will no longer be automatically recognized on the territory of the EU.
European institutions point out that this is the first common European framework for protection against SLAPP lawsuits, which gives media freedom and the right to free expression more concrete legal protection. The directive also obliges member states to publicly publish final judgments in such cases and systematically collect data on them, in order to better understand the scale of the problem.
MEP Tiemo Welken, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the directive, said that SLAPP lawsuits pose a serious threat to the rule of law and fundamental freedoms, including the right to information and freedom of speech. He stressed that the judicial system must not be used to intimidate journalists and activists or to impose self-censorship.
However, experts warn that the directive has certain limitations. The biggest problem is that European rules primarily apply to cross-border cases, while many SLAPP lawsuits are brought within a single state. Therefore, the final effect will depend on how far individual countries extend the protection in their own laws.
Pressure for a European anti-SLAPP law increased further after the murder of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. At the time of her death, more than 40 defamation lawsuits were pending against her, and part of the proceedings continued even after her murder against members of her family. The case has become a symbol of the danger that SLAPP lawsuits pose to investigative journalism and free speech in Europe.
In 2021, the European Parliament established the Dafna Caruana Galici Award for Journalism, which rewards research projects of public interest. Past winners include research on the Pegasus spyware, Russian influence in Africa, migrant tragedies in the Mediterranean and Russian sanctions circumvention.
The representatives of the Dafna Caruana Galici Foundation warned that even the new European framework would not fully protect the journalist from most of the lawsuits she faced, which shows that European countries still have a lot of work to do.
For journalists, activists and the academic community, the new directive represents an important step forward, but not a final solution. How effective the protection will really be will depend on the willingness of the member states to adopt more ambitious measures than the minimum standards prescribed by the European Union.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the issue of SLAPP lawsuits has not yet been systematically regulated, although journalistic organizations and civil society organizations have been warning for years that court proceedings are often used as a means of pressuring the media, activists and public critics. Unlike the member states of the European Union, BiH does not yet have a special anti-SLAPP law or a unique legal framework that would enable early rejection of malicious lawsuits and more effective protection of persons acting in the public interest.
Investigative journalists who report on corruption, misuse of public money, political connections and organized crime are particularly affected. Even when disputes end in favor of journalists, lengthy court processes and high costs often represent serious financial and psychological pressure.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that BiH is not a member of the European Union, so the European Anti-SLAPP Directive does not apply directly on its territory. However, as a candidate country for membership, Bosnia and Herzegovina will have to gradually harmonize its legislation with European standards in the field of media freedom and protection of public interest in the process of European integration, he writes. NOISE.
