High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom calls for legal reforms at Anti-SLAPP Conference

The High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom has issued a call for legal reforms to protect the rights of journalists and other activists at the United Kingdom’s first Anti-SLAPP Conference: Countering Legal Threats to Media Freedom. The event, held on 22-23 November, was co-hosted by the Justice for Journalists Foundation (JFJ) and the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC). The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) is Secretariat to the High Level Panel.

A strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) is a form of lawsuit initiated most often against journalists, media outlets, civil society organisations (CSOs), human rights defenders and activists to censor criticism and silence public interest reporting. SLAPPs are a form of legal coercion which weaponise the law and impair the rule of law by inhibiting media freedoms, undermining the role of the media as a critical pillar of democracy. Journalists and the media are often targets of SLAPPs and face hefty legal and financial burdens. Most cases have no real legal merit, and they are largely intended to drain the vital resources of journalists and media organisations.

Delivering the keynote address to open the conference on 22 November, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Member of the High Level Panel and IBAHRI Director, noted that the targets of SLAPPs include ‘journalists investigating government corruption and exposing corporate abuses, but also CSOs, non-governmental organisations, human rights defenders and activists in a bid to shut down or silence aspects of protests’. She noted the power imbalance presented within the legal system and how SLAPPs are often a misuse of the law to advance cases under the guise of normal ‘due process’. She spoke to the psychological impact of SLAPPs and the ‘collateral damage’ they can create for the personal lives of targets and their familial relationships. Baroness Kennedy noted that, ‘Ultimately, to prevent or dismiss SLAPPs, those who speak out on issues of public interest, particularly journalists, frequently agree to muzzle themselves to survive, either by apologising, or “correcting” statements they have made’. She concluded by urging participants to consider the significant issues presented by SLAPPs as seriously as other challenges to media freedom, stating: ‘This type of litigation is designed to drain resources and chill critical reporting’, emphasising that SLAPPs can be ‘slow, painful which can have very serious outcomes’.

Monitoring by press freedom organisations has highlighted how freelance journalists, documentary filmmakers and small news outlets are especially at risk due to the lack of financial and human resources to support them in the defence of spurious claims. In a report titled Unsafe for Scrutiny: Examining the pressures faced by journalists uncovering financial crime and corruption around the world, the FPC conducted a survey with 62 investigative journalists from 41 countries. Of these, 71 per cent reported experiencing threats and/or harassment while working on investigations into financial crime and corruption, and 73 per cent were threatened with legal action, with the UK listed as the most frequent country of origin for legal threats.

In his keynote address on 23 November, Professor Dario Milo, Partner at Webber Wentzel and Member of the High Level Panel, spoke to selected case studies from South Africa ‘which illustrate a parallel mechanism for dealing with SLAPPs in countries that do not have the legislative interventions that are needed’. He went on to add that with his intervention he ‘especially want[s] to encourage those functioning within common law systems to explore options within their civil law and procedure to address the scourge that SLAPPs have become, even as they agitate for legislative intervention’.

Professor Milo further commented: ‘Countering the SLAPPs scourge is too important an exercise to wait for the legislative process to unfold – in parallel to this process, at least in countries where this is possible with some creative lawyering, I urge lawyers and activists to seek to develop the common law to SLAPP back, even as we reinvigorate efforts to deal with SLAPPs at the policy and legislative level. SLAPPs should also be seen in the broader context of laws and practices in some countries which continue to oppress, persecute, harass, detain and even assassinate truth speakers and truth seekers, and adopting best practice to counter these threats lies at the heart of the work of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom.’

Globally, the use of SLAPPs has become more widespread and they are used as a tool by powerful and wealthy officials, corporations and high-level business individuals who can afford to bring lawsuits against journalists, media outlets and ordinary people expressing a critical position against them.

Professor Can Yeginsu, barrister and incoming Deputy Chair of the Panel, remarked: ‘It is now well established that SLAPPs can have a profoundly harmful impact on the right to freedom of expression, and in particular on media freedoms. The use or threat of legal action in order to intimidate or censor journalists by burdening them with mounting legal costs and other civil liability is chilling expression in many countries around the world and interfering with journalists’ abilities to perform their professional duties in reporting on corruption and other abuses of power. SLAPPs are a regrettable misuse of civil legal recourse, and an abuse of process of sorts. The High Level Panel is committed to drawing attention to these sorts of misuses of the law, and to working with its partners to propose solutions to what is a growing and serious problem for journalists around the world. The Panel will also consider the rise of SLAPPs in its forthcoming work on the international standards governing defamation, sedition, and “insult” laws.’

ENDS