”Anti-SLAPP Directive: It’s high time for regulation”

On Friday, 3 February, MEP Irena Joveva was invited to speak at the event Intimidating Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPP) organised by the Institute for Culture of Diversity Open and the Legal Network for the Protection of Democracy. In her speech, she emphasised the dire need to regulate the field. She also mentioned indicative amendments to the current proposal for a Directive and made it clear that such slaps in the face against journalists, activists and the legal system can no longer be tolerated.

The MEP began by saying that she had been involved in the European Parliament’s conceptualisation of the so-called anti-SLAPP Directive in the Committee on Culture and Education, of which she is a full member, and that she will be actively and intensively involved in the amendments to the legislative proposal in the coming months.

In the current proposal for a Directive, Joveva particularly welcomes the introduction of the so-called early dismissal mechanism, which will allow judges to dismiss obvious cases of strategic lawsuits before they even reach trial. She also stressed the importance of preventing “forum shopping”, which currently allows plaintiffs to bring several simultaneous actions in several countries in order to overwhelm defendants with the burden of costs and time. At the same time, she also sees several possibilities to improve the Directive:

“/…/ that we should also create a common public database of intimidating strategic lawsuits across the EU, to enable even faster dismissals of these lawsuits and to expose those who resort to them. Furthermore, we could create a specific common fund at the EU level to cover, say, legal costs or psychological support for victims. Perhaps most importantly, lawyers, judges and citizens need to be informed and educated about the possibilities that this legislation will provide.”

The MEP pointed out that it is high time to regulate this area and recalled that there are also examples of such lawsuits in Slovenia.

“SLAPP lawsuits. I find this acronym truly apposite, which is why I once wrote a long note to explain to the public /…/ what it stands for. And I wrote that, as far as I am concerned, the acronym can also be read as a ‘slap’, because that is what it is. It is a slap in the face of investigative journalism and the legal system, and these should no longer be tolerated.”

In addition to Joveva, the event was attended by Jasna Zakonjšek, an attorney, Đorđe Grbović, a judge of the Ljubljana Higher Court, Igor Šoltes, State Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, and Primož Cirman, a journalist and a target of such a lawsuit. The roundtable was moderated by Barbara Rajgelj. The discussion focused on what mechanisms Slovenian law already has in place to prevent abuse of law, how victims experience and survive proceedings, how, if at all, the new directive will contribute to faster resolution of SLAPP lawsuits, and what else can be done, besides normative changes, to protect against such abuses or to reduce their negative impact.