Ending SLAPPs: strategic lawsuits against public participation

Statement

15 June 2020

SOMO is one of the more than hundred signatories of a policy paper on how the EU should end gag lawsuits, also known as SLAPPs.

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation are lawsuits brought forward by powerful actors (such as companies, public officials in their private capacity, high profile persons) to harass and silence those speaking out in the public interest. Typical victims are those with a watchdog role, like journalists, activists, academics, trade unions, and civil society organisations. SLAPPs are a threat to freedom of expression, advocacy and assembly rights.

Recent examples of SLAPPs include PayPal suing SumOfUs(opens in new window) for a peaceful protest outside PayPal’s German headquarters; co-owners of Malta’s Satabank suing blogger Manuel Delia(opens in new window) for a blog post denouncing money laundering at Satabank; and Bollore Group suing Sherpa and ReAct in France(opens in new window) to stop them from reporting human rights abuses in Cameroon. In Italy more than 6,000 or two-thirds of(opens in new window) defamation lawsuits filed against journalists and media outlets annually are dismissed as meritless by a judge. When Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was brutally killed, there were 47 SLAPPs(opens in new window) pending against her.