The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition is an informal working group established in January 2021 comprising a number of freedom of expression, whistleblowing, anti-corruption and transparency organisations, as well as media lawyers, researchers and academics

Journalism is vital for local democracy to hold power in check and give a voice to the community, ensuring no one is beyond scrutiny.(Image: UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition)

Today media outlets across the country are joining a Day of Action to call for the UK Government to include anti-SLAPP protections in the forthcoming King’s Speech.

Journalists do not become journalists to prepare for court hearings. They join newsrooms, submit FOI requests, ask questions, report from council hearings and courts and speak to as many people as they can because they have a story to tell.

They also know that local communities do better when there is more information in the public domain, not less.

Journalism is vital for local democracy to hold power in check and give a voice to the community, ensuring no one is beyond scrutiny. However, unchecked wealth and influence has a powerful ally in its quest to prevent questions being asked and sheltering itself from uncomfortable attention – the British justice system.

Abusive lawsuits, sometimes called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), allow those with money to threaten costly and time-intensive court action to prevent reporting being made public or to force published work from the public eye.

Abusive lawsuits, sometimes called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), allow those with money to threaten costly and time-intensive court action to prevent reporting being made public or to force published work from the public eye(Image: UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition)

Abusive lawsuits are not genuine attempts to address flaws in the journalist’s work. Indeed many journalists are sued just for asking questions or requesting comment from someone who has not even read the piece before deciding to sue them. SLAPPs are attempts to silence reporting and cordon off those deserved of scrutiny from any form of public accountability.

All forms of journalism is vulnerable to this sort of abuse from legal bullies.

For investigating Putin’s rise to power, Catherine Belton was threatened by multiple Russian oligarchs and a Russian state oil company; Paul Radu, the co-founder of OCCRP, was sued by an Azerbaijan MP in London even though neither are based in the UK; the UK Treasury were only too happy to allow disgraced and sanctioned Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin to sue Bellingcat founder, Eliot Higgins; and the legal action, including threats of imprisonment, aimed at The Londoner by the subject of its reporting.

But these tactics are not limited to national or international outlets: local journalists and smaller outlets can also be targeted by the same or similar abusive legal threats.

Journalists are not the only ones who can be targeted to spike a story. SLAPPs have been used against survivors of sexual assault who have named their attackers to warn other women.

They have been used against local campaigners working tirelessly to improve public services for themselves and their neighbours.

They have been used against former patients who have posted reviews to inform others exploring potential medical treatment.

They have been used against environmentalists fighting to protect endangered species and eco-systems from corporate greed.

They have been used against tenants who have the temerity to request repairs are made in good time and that complaints are taken seriously. In fact, there are few areas of society untouched by this form of legalised bullying and so we have to ask – who has been threatened into silence, so much so that they are too fearful to speak to a journalist?

SLAPPs remove information from the public domain. Every story, social media post, blog, report or published piece of work removed by a target who cannot afford to mount a defence, cannot afford to turn away from their work to prepare going to court, and cannot afford to endure the complexity and unpredictability of the British justice system, is something that leaves us all worse off.

However, next month the government has an opportunity to re-address the balance to ensure that those targeted by legal bullies have the same right to justice as those wealthy enough to afford the legal costs.

If the King’s Speech includes a Bill that will establish universal, clear and meaningful anti-SLAPP protections, we know legislative time will be put aside for Parliamentarians to take an important step for the rights of everyone to speak out.