Aims of a SLAPP suit (strategic lawsuit against public participation) and concerns about stifling public participation in areas of legitimate community concern - calls for anti SLAPP legislation - ...anti pulp mill protest.
Struggle between the Gunn corporation and environmentalists through the lens of the original 'Gunns20' writ - demonstrating how such legal action simultaneously defines the 'successful' corporate ...enemy in the same moment that it constitutes an attack on democratic debate - responding to Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participants (SLAPPs).
The current “pink-slime” controversy over the unlabeled
use of “lean finely textured beef” (LFTB) in more than
75% of the nation’s hamburgers, including within the
federal school lunch program, is ...not a new phenomenon.
Over the last 25 years there have been several news stories
regarding issues in the nation-wide food chain that have
garnered significant traction with the public and adversely
affected some agricultural industries for a period of time.
Firms use the strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) against citizens who complain about poor compliance with environmental rules and regulations. As a consequence, lawmakers have ...proposed banning SLAPPs in public debate. Theory suggests, however, that a SLAPP ban might be inefficient because it eliminates the efficient signaling equilibrium. This study extends the conflict model to include reputation effects. Our results suggest that a SLAPP ban can increase efficiency but only under a restrictive set of assumptions. One such assumption is that a ban makes sense when firms do not use the SLAPP to build a reputation, which contradicts the spirit of why firms use it in the first place. A SLAPP ban might increase efficiency, however, if it reduces the efficiency losses of chills during the interim periods when a firm builds its reputation.
The proposed EU Directive on protecting persons who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded or abusive court proceedings (“anti-SLAPPs Directive”) is the European Union response to ...fight strategic lawsuits against public participation (“SLAPPs”). The latter are proceedings where the lawsuit legal instrument is misused to silence activists regarding information activities carried out by them in relation to facts of public interest and, finally, to achieve a chilling effect on the entire society. As a result, SLAPPs represent an obstacle to freedom of expression, participation, activism, and ultimately to democracy. Indeed, democracy is the foundation the EU is based on and can only thrive in a climate where freedom of expression is upheld, in line with the European Convention on Human Rights, including its positive obligations under Article 10, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, highlighting the horizontal (and questionable direct effect) dimension of its Article 11. And for a healthy and prosperous democracy, people need to be able to actively participate in public debate without undue interference and to have access to reliable information. Therefore, the proposed anti-SLAPPs Directive aims to safeguard SLAPPs targets and, in so doing, strengthen democracy. The anti-SLAPPs Directive is tested practically to SLAPPs cases which have interested Daphne Caruana Galizia, a blog editor in Malta whose activism led to her being killed in 2017, as well as tested to other SLAPPs affected story lives. A broader comparative/multidisciplinary look at other human rights protection systems and anti-SLAPPs legislations in the world is offered. At the end, from the overall analysis carried out, it emerges that the anti-SLAPPs Directive has a significant potential for the objectives it aims to achieve, but that is not enough: Member States should consider also to address SLAPPs in domestic cases and to decriminalise defamation.
The issue of SLAPPs remains a largely understudied area in journalism studies. Limited academic work on the topic mainly focuses on its legal aspects and there is little empirical academic work ...engaging with the way SLAPPs are experienced by those who are personally involved. This study focuses on illuminating the impact of these vexatious and frivolous lawsuits on investigative journalism and press freedom, and recording whether journalists experience additional or different consequences from SLAPPs in comparison to other types of threats. Based on interviews with journalists who have experienced SLAPPs in recent years and documenting their personal experiences, the study sheds light on the hidden professional and personal costs of investigative reporting, attempts to assess this phenomenon in relation to its effects on journalism and journalists, and is one of the few to record and analyze journalists’ personal beliefs and experiences.
Reports show that media freedom is under pressure worldwide. Violence against journalists has a legal facet that takes the form of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) that aim at ...silencing critical speech. While in some countries there are legal protections against SLAPPs, in Europe a debate is only recently being carried out, mainly fostered by professional journalist associations and civil society. This article explores the role that European journalistic self-regulatory bodies perceive they (could) have in fighting SLAPPs, analysing 16 qualitative answers gathered via a questionnaire. Self-regulation has historically been a way to protect the independence of journalism and uphold its ethical standards. The open-ended responses help to understand how SLAPPs put into question the representations that media councils and professional associations use to construct their ‘professional jurisdiction’, and therefore, their ‘territory’ and the way in which they see their role in society. Our results provide food for thought on the handling of legal attacks against journalists.
Strategic litigation against public participation (‘SLAPPs’) are abusive lawsuits that seek to suppress communications on matters of public interest. This article analyses the proposed Anti-SLAPP ...Directive which aims to protect human rights defenders and journalists throughout the European Union. The article analyses the diverging positions adopted by the Council and Parliament in June resp. July 2023, addressing concerns that the final Anti-SLAPP Directive’s scope will be limited to such an extent as to render it largely ineffective to protect civil society actors against abusive court proceedings.
