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SLAPPs taskforce: Government must go further to protect journalists, experts say [1]
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Date: 2023-09
Experts have welcomed the first meeting of an official group tasked with preventing journalists from being sued by the rich and powerful in trumped-up lawsuits – but urged ministers to go further to protect reporters.
Culture secretary Lucy Frazer attended the inaugural meeting of a new task force established by the government to tackle Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) after pressure from openDemocracy and other publications.
The taskforce will meet every two months to “build on work in the Economic Crime Bill”, which was amended earlier this year to offer some formal protection for UK journalists exposing economic crime.
Experts celebrated its launch but stressed that the government must introduce an anti-SLAPP law rather than amending existing legislation.
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Jessica Ní Mhainín, the head of policy and campaigns at Index on Censorship, said: “We hope that this new taskforce will complement forthcoming legislation – not only the anti-SLAPP amendments in the Economic Crime Bill but ultimately a standalone anti-SLAPP law.
“We hope the taskforce will help ensure that SLAPPs are more widely understood, that those affected are better supported, and that we can put a decisive end to the use of SLAPPs in the UK and beyond.”
Bogus defamation and privacy claims are often made to intimidate and financially exhaust journalists and media outlets into dropping investigations into corruption or other crimes by wealthy individuals.
Even if a SLAPP has little chance of succeeding in court, reporters or publications may be forced to drop the story due to the excessive amounts of time and money needed for a legal battle.
Earlier this year, openDemocracy revealed how the UK government helped Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late Wagner leader, to bypass sanctions and launch a legal attack on British journalist Eliot Higgins of investigative website Bellingcat in the London courts.
Prigozhin’s lawsuit ultimately collapsed when his lawyers withdrew their services, but Higgins was still left with legal fees of £70,000 – and could have faced a far higher bill if the case had made it too court.
Susan Coughtrie, the director of the Foreign Policy Centre and co-chair of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, of which openDemocracy is a member, said that while the “cross-departmental as well as cross-sector collaboration” is “encouraging”, the government must also tackle the high costs involved in fighting a lawsuit.
Coughtrie said: “Effective measures to protect against SLAPPs require more than legislation, and include stronger regulation, as well as wider cultural change, as outlined in the many recommendations we put forward in our London Calling report, published last year with ARTICLE 19.”
She also stressed a need for a new law “that would provide an effective mechanism to dispose of any SLAPPs brought against those speaking in the public interest… and tackle the issue of high costs, which is a key factor in the success of SLAPP actions”.
Research by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) found SLAPPs are on the rise in the UK, with 14 estimated in England and Wales in 2021, compared with two in both 2020 and 2019 and one in 2018.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/slapps-new-task-force-lawsuits-protect-journalists-government-lucy-frazer-prigozhin-higgins/
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