David Haworth

The two hitmen guilty of the car-bomb murder of a well-known journalist in Malta have each been sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The trials of four others accused of conspiracy in Daphne Caruana Galizia’s killing have yet to be completed. But the brazen and meticulously planned assassination of this investigative journalist in 2017 inspired anger that still echoes worldwide.

Caruana Galizia was murdered because she wasn’t cowed by a 40-plus torrent of libel writs from businesses and individuals who found her curiosity about corruption far too intrusive. In the time-honored way of mob politics, she was “rubbed out” when threats failed to silence her.

Caruana Galizia’s case — admittedly — was extreme even in a small island nation awash with Russian oligarchs, their property, cash and bimbos. The reputation for bravery and endurance gained during World War II has long been tarnished by money laundering and other dodgy practices like selling passports to non-EU citizens.

The murder helped public opinion to coalesce — and alert it to the danger of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) for press freedom. The multiple lawsuits against one journalist? What on earth was going on?

Quite a lot, as it happens.

For those unfamiliar with the term, SLAPPs means using the law to harass, intimidate and silence critical or inconvenient voices. In other words, to use the justice system for attacks on journalists and public watchdogs.

Typically such action is taken by powerful, wealthy entities against those with slender resources who cannot afford to be tangled by time-consuming, vexatious and, above all, costly litigation.

The most common issues to emerge concerned government, followed by corruption, business and environment, in that order. Almost 90 percent were cases in which the complainant had greater wealth or power than the defendants. Only rarely do the issues reach the courtroom. That does not matter much; the purpose is the chilling effect prospective litigation has on the defendants’ voices and actions.

A recent survey by Dutch experts, Amsterdam Law Clinics, has found 570 abusive lawsuits in 29 countries over the past decade, with a clearly growing trend across Europe to bully critics into silence through specious legal means.

There is no unified law across the 27-member European Union against SLAPPs, so the picture is patchy. In the United States, 32 states plus the District of Columbia have anti-SLAPP laws to protect the First Amendment. But the case law is uneven and protects only about half the nation — and not all through federal courts.

In Europe, Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe’s human relations boss, told a Strasbourg conference on SLAPPs: “The urgency to act is clear to me. SLAPPs occur every day in Europe, like recently the journalists in France and Greece who are being sued by powerful companies and institutions — but also young activists who speak out to protect their community or the environment.

“The situation is worrying but not hopeless,” she said.

The devious use of the law for hostile purposes extends to diplomacy with military objectives in mind — “law fare,” a coercion method favored by the Chinese in South China Sea disputes and Russia in the Arctic region.

But threats to journalism and free speech are of more immediate concern to European authorities and interest groups.

Among the safeguards to provide courts with the tools to fight back against abusive court proceedings are early dismissal of proceedings, the burden of proof falling on the claimants, and for them to pay all court costs, including those of the defendants.

David Haworth has covered Europe since the early 1970s. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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