The European Parliament’s Committees on Civil Liberties (LIBE) and Legal Affairs (JURI) took stock on Thursday 2 September of the amendments tabled by the different political groups to flesh-out the draft report on “strategic lawsuit against public participation” by Tiemo Wölken (S&D, Germany) and Roberta Metsola (EPP, Malta).
With this own-initiative report (see EUROPE 12753/19), MEPs aim to highlight the legal arsenal that the EU could use to fight against abusive use of the courts to silence journalists, NGOs and other civil society representatives, a phenomenon better known as “SLAPPs”.
“I’m very happy to see that we, more or less, all agree on how important this own-initiative report is”, stressed Tiemo Wölken, before launching into a brief summary of the 430 amendments tabled and the aspects of the text that will need to be further developed.
The work ahead, he said, would include the notion of “public participation”, which had been introduced through several amendments, notably to broaden the definition of “SLAPPs”.
An amendment by Tiemo Wölken and Roberta Metsola now suggests that these procedures should be defined as actions to “preventing acts of public participation including investigating and reporting on breaches of Union and national law, corruption or other fraudulent practices”.
Future work should also help to better identify the instigators of “SLAPPs” and, above all, their victims.
“The amendments have made it clear that for the Directive we are calling for to be effective and useful for victims, we need to broaden its scope”, Mr Wölken said.
In the original text, the main targets identified were journalists, academics, civil society and NGOs. The various groups suggest in their amendments to add to this list: human rights defenders, environmental defenders and civil society organisations, publishers, NGOs working to protect media freedom, activists, artists, media organisations, whistleblowers, political representatives and “other actors engaging in public participation”.
The forthcoming negotiations on the compromise amendments should also strengthen the provisions on possible sanctions against “SLAPPs”: the early dismissal of abusive prosecutions, for example, or the reversal of the burden of proof.
Some further work is also needed on the recommendations on awareness-raising for judges and lawyers and on support for victims.
This work will be done in the coming weeks, with the vote on the final text still scheduled for this month, Ms Metsola confirmed.
To consult the amendments tabled: https://bit.ly/3DJZoXh and https://bit.ly/3DH0nHH (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)