The European Union proposed, this Wednesday (27), new bills to contain the excess of judicial processes aimed at silencing journalists and human rights defenders by governments and businessmen, a form of coercion that is on the rise in countries such as Croatia and Poland.
Ultimately looking at the health of democracy in the 27-nation bloc, the Brussels-based European Commission said so-called strategic processes against public participation (SLAPPs) were a “serious concern” in the last year.
“Clearly groundless or abusive legal proceedings against public participation are recent, but they are phenomena that are increasingly prevalent in the European Union,” the Commission said in proposing new legal conditions for the bloc.
Such disproportionate lawsuits, usually based on defamation clauses, are intended to intimidate targets, exhaust their resources and tie them up in multiple legal proceedings, often in multiple jurisdictions, the Commission says.
They are typically driven by plaintiffs with more political or economic power, and have a dire effect on those prosecuted, including academic groups, LGBTQI+ groups, environmental activists or trade unionists, it said.
In Malta, investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was involved in around 40 defamation cases at the time of her murder in 2017, the Commission added.
“In a democracy, wealth and power cannot give anyone an advantage over the truth,” said the Commission’s Deputy Director for Values and Transparency, Vera Jourova.
“We are helping to protect those who take risks and speak up when the public’s interest is at stake.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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