New SLAPPs report shows urgent need for effective anti-SLAPP legislation

166 Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) cases were filed across Europe in 2023 alone, the 2024 SLAPPs report has found. Drafted by The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation for the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) and released to mark International AntiCorruption Day, the co-published report also found that journalists are the most frequently targetted defendants, followed by media outlets, editors, activists, and NGOs.

All over Europe, SLAPPs are used to intimidate and silence journalists, activists and others exposing corruption, environmental damage, and malfeasance. Of the newly documented abusive legal actions, 1 in 3 cases relate to corruption and more than 15% to environmental issues. Most were filed by businesses and politicians. The countries with the largest numbers of new cases are Italy (26), Romania (15), Serbia (10), and Turkey (10). For the first time, the CASE report has recorded SLAPPs in Monaco, in Lithuania, in Azerbaijan, and in Denmark, bringing the total number of European countries in which SLAPPs have been identified to 41. Of the 1049 SLAPP cases filed in European courts in the years 2010-2023, 91 (9% of the total) were against Maltese defendants, most of them against Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta.

By the end of 2023, 64.3% of SLAPPs filed across Europe were civil lawsuits but the statistics collated for the CASE report show an increasing proportion of cases based in criminal law. UNESCO recently observed a trend towards the reintroduction of criminal defamation, making it imperative that European states’ anti-SLAPP legislation provides effective protection across civil, administrative, and criminal laws. Malta repealed the law on criminal defamation but recently there have been calls for its reintroduction, prompting push-back by the Institute of Maltese Journalists (IGM).

Malta’s anti-SLAPP legislation is inadequate, as the transposition of the EU anti-SLAPP directive in July this year does not provide comprehensive and effective protection. Among other problems, it provides no protection against abusive litigation in domestic civil cases or in criminal cases, it disregards the EU Recommendation that formed part of the same anti-SLAPP package as the directive, and it fails to meet the standards set by the Council of Europe Recommendation on countering the use of SLAPPs.

SLAPPs are a threat to democracy and free expression as they have a chilling effect and lead to the suppression of knowledge and information. Without effective anti-SLAPP protection in Malta and across Europe, abusive litigation will continue to erode free expression and undermine the right to know.