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Background and general objectives

Courts are designed to right wrongs—to achieve justice. But courts can be abused. Vexatious litigation has been around for as long as courts have, but the 2000s have seen an epidemic of a new kind of legal harassment, “strategic litigation against public participation” (SLAPP) suits, commonly directed at journalists (or their media organisations) or rights-defending activists (or their NGOs). Plaintiffs have no reasonable path to victory, but victory isn’t the point; scaring the defendant into silence via costly litigation, bankrupting pesky opponents of exploitative companies or corrupt government agencies, and pre-emptively chilling would-be future exposure of wrongdoing are SLAPPs’
goals.

There is no right more fundamental than the right to Freedom of Expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers…

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

The right to freedom of expression is also reiterated in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

Article 10 of the Convention also contains positive obligations of the States that are signatories to the Convention “to create a favourable environment for participation in public debate by all the persons concerned, enabling them to express their opinions and ideas without fear” (ECtHR 29 January 2015, Uzeyir Jafarov v. Azerbaijan).

This provides an onus on the part of member countries to required to establish an effective mechanism for the protection of authors and journalists in order to create a favourable environment for participation and to ensure that legislation is not used to intimidate media professionals and journalists.

In the light of this, the project seeks to upskill the lawyers defending media and journalists against companies and governmental figures suing to shut down legitimate criticism. PATFox will identify and train in “defence against SLAPPs” techniques to the 10-20 lawyers in each partner country most likely to find themselves facing SLAPP suits. The partners are NGOs active in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Cyprus, Poland, Slovenia and Malta.

Project Activities

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