Resolution 2531 (2024)1Provisional version

Countering SLAPPS: an imperative for a democratic society

Parliamentary Assembly

1. In recent years, there has been a steady increase in the number of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). The term refers to abusive litigation and legal tactics designed to prevent, hinder or sanction public participation, that is the dissemination of information on sensitive issues and contributions to public debate on “matters of public interest”, including a wide range of journalism, advocacy, communication and speech. In this respect, all matters where the public has a legitimate interest, including issues which affect the public and those which inspire controversy, but not issues of a purely private nature, must be considered of “public interest”.

2. The Platform to promote the protection of journalism and the safety of journalists of the Council of Europe describes SLAPPs as a form of “harassment and intimidation of journalists” or “acts having a chilling effect on media freedom”, depending on the source of the threat and the legal approach taken by the claimant. But while this worrying phenomenon seriously undermines media freedom, journalists are not the only victims, as such lawsuits may also target, for example, activists, whistle-blowers, human rights or environmental groups, trade unions, and any other individual or entity raising issues of public interest. The disclosure process in SLAPP cases can also threaten the protection of journalists’ sources.

3. SLAPPs systematically feature two interconnected traits: i) they consist of legal actions that are initiated or pursued or threatened to be, to intimidate, harass or silence their target; and ii) they misuse or abuse legal proceedings and legal guarantees to prevent, hinder or penalise freedom of expression on matters of public interest and the exercise of rights associated with public participation.

4. There are other typical characteristics of SLAPPs, which however are not necessarily all simultaneously present in each case. Claimants are usually in a position of (economic and often political) power and have considerably more resources than the defendants they seek to intimidate and silence (journalists, media or activists). The claimants or their lawyers often advance aggressively framed or spurious arguments. Despite the weakness of their legal arguments, the claimants demand exorbitant amounts of damages and ramp up and draw out legal proceedings so as to force defendants to spend significant amounts of time and money defending their case. Sometimes, many co-ordinated legal actions related to the same event, and which can also have a cross-border element, are initiated by the claimants or their associated parties. The claimants may also orchestrate denigratory public relations campaigns against the defendants, to humiliate and delegitimise them. This is largely a matter of threats and the desire to intimidate and bully them into self-censorship, not so much to avert the risk of conviction, but to avoid the certainty of having to make considerable sacrifices for justice to be served.

5. SLAPPs may thus be regarded as a form of “lawfare”, a way of manipulating the judicial system and undermining its inherent protective role by misusing it to inhibit the right to freedom of expression and the right of citizens to receive information on matters of public interest. They prosper in jurisdictions which lack robust procedural guarantees to counter abusive lawsuits.

1. Assembly debate on 25 January 2024 (6th sitting) (see Doc. 15869, report of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media, rapporteur: Mr Stefan Schennach; and Doc. 15879, opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr Davor Ivo Stier). Text adopted by the Assembly on 25 January 2024 (6th sitting).

See also Recommendation 2267 (2024).

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