The European Parliament approved with an overwhelming majority a law protecting journalists and human rights advocates from abusive legal proceedings designed to stifle freedom of speech, marking the end of a six-year push to get the law across the line.
The directive, approved in plenary on Tuesday (27 February), sets a minimum standard for protecting media and public watchdogs from strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) across the EU.
The final text includes provisions on early dismissal of manifestly unfounded cases, a broad definition of what constitutes a ‘cross-border’ case, and provides for compensatory damages for the defendant.
“Journalism, activism, and other types of public participation will finally be protected from baseless, costly, and time-consuming lawsuits,” Flutura Kusari, who advocated for the law as part of the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE), wrote on X.
EU institutions reached a political agreement on the directive in November.
“Despite strong divergences between the Council and the Parliament’s position, we managed to ensure that this directive goes beyond mere procedural aspects and duly reflects the broader impact and context of these cases,” the Parliament’s rapporteur for the directive, social democrat Tiemo Wölken, told journalists at the time.
The Anti-SLAPP Directive is colloquially known as Daphne’s Law, named after Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who was assassinated in 2017 and faced over 40 lawsuits at the time of her death.
For the past six years, the foundation created under her name has campaigned for better protections for journalists facing lawsuits designed to drain the time and financial resources of defendants.
While no comprehensive EU-wide data exists on the prevalence of such cases, in large part due to varying definitions of what constitutes a SLAPP, research by CASE identified Malta, France, Croatia, Greece and Slovenia as having a notable number of such lawsuits.
CASE welcomed the European Parliament’s adoption, stating that the responsibility now lies with member states to build on the foundation of the EU directive and the Council of Europe’s upcoming recommendation on SLAPPs to draft effective national legislation.
EU countries will have until 2026 to implement the directive.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
