The number of SLAPPs continues to rise in the European Union, revealed a report by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) on Monday 9 December.
In total, CASE has identified 1,049 cases between 2010 and 2023, although it points out that these figures “only scratch the surface of the problem”. SLAPPs have at least doubled, from 85 cases in 2017 to 166 cases in 2023. In 2016, CASE counted 27. Italy, Romania, Serbia and Turkey stand out with a “notable number of SLAPPs” in 2023. Monaco, Lithuania, Azerbaijan and Denmark join the list, having been absent from previous reports.
The report points out that lawsuits from previous years are sometimes listed years later, as “often information on cases becomes publicly available following the publication of a judicial decision“. The majority of lawsuits recorded over the period relate to defamation or “similar provisions on insult or honour“, according to the report.
Lawsuits were mainly civil (64.3%) and criminal (21.7%), with 5.8% injunctions and 5.3% cases of unknown legal basis.
UNESCO recently expressed concern about an increase in the use of criminal defamation compared to the previous report, while only five EU Member States have decriminalised it.
SLAPPs mainly relate to corruption, business, government action and the environment. Litigants are generally those “in positions of power; namely, businesses and politicians“. They most often target individual journalists. Media outlets, editors, activists and NGOs come second.
The ‘media freedom’ legislation adopted by the EU in April 2024 (see EUROPE 13394/32) is only sufficient to cover a minority of cases, according to the CASE report, which calls on Member States to go beyond these “minimum harmonisation measures”.
In the same month, the Council of Europe proposed a more solid framework in a non-binding recommendation to discourage the use of these lawsuits (see EUROPE 13385/17). Moreover, according to the European Court of Human Rights, discourse on matters of public interest requires specific protection.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/epz (Original version in French by Florent Servia)