Prime Minister Robert Abela has boasted of anti-SLAPP legislation, which he will pilot through parliament. The secrecy surrounding this legislation feels like it is being drafted around a cauldron in the midst of Castille and shrouded with dark clouds fighting the same Castille spirits who, only a short while ago, tacitly agreed to big business slapping Maltese journalists.

Forget this secrecy and also that the opposition had presented such a proposal to parliament which government had repeatedly shot down; an anti-SLAPP legislative proposal is definitely and urgently needed.

Journalists, newsrooms, bloggers and critics have faced several threats of being slapped with lawsuits that would cripple them. Some threats have alone brought about a chilling effect with the removal of publications from online portals. The malicious intent behind the threat of Pilatus Bank has now been exposed as justice slowly caught up with Pilatus and its administrators. But, meanwhile, Maltese journalists and editors work under a constant threat.

SLAPP suits are generally started by powerful businesses against persons who express critical opinions of their work or behaviour. They are started with the intention of crippling and gagging a critical voice, someone, very often a journalist, blogger or activist, who exposes, criticises or denounces the wrongdoing of that business.

The main intention of the claim is not to assert a right to protect one’s reputation but to ensure that you silence and exert a chilling effect on those who have dared expose your action or wish to do so. You, therefore, strategically choose that action which will cause the most damage to your critic.

The consequence of such proceedings is to execute that chilling effect on freedom of expression without which a democracy cannot function properly. While SLAPP suits attack individual journalists, they attack the core of a country’s democracy, bringing to their knees those tasked with the responsibility of informing public debate and those who dare participate in public debate.

While SLAPP suits attack individual journalists, they attack the core of a country’s democracy- Therese Comodini Cachia

Enacting anti-SLAPP legislation is not doing journalists an undeserved favour but fulfilling a public obligation of creating an enabling environment for the press and for those who dare criticise and participate in that very public debate without which no country can move forward. With this in mind, Abela’s legislation cannot simply be a cauldron fabrication from Castille. It needs to meet criteria which represent the essential fundamental values which SLAPP suits try to undermine.

My assessment of Abela’s draft will therefore depend on how effective it is in recognising the value of a free press as Malta’s fourth pillar of democracy and of recognising a thriving civil society as a core value of our society.

Will he commit to protection from SLAPP proceedings as a rule of public policy, signalling that recognition of these rights is not up for discussion?

Will Abela trust the courts with the discretion to address the chilling effect of SLAPP suits even through the possibility of dismissing the claim or enforcement of that judgment in its entirety? This is not one of those laws in which Labour can once again choose corrupt powerful businessmen.

This is not a law dealing with good-intentioned proportionate libel suits but with ill-intended disproportionate suits against public participation on matters of public interest. Abela’s proposal will therefore only be an honest expression of the will to create an enabling environment for a free press and to strengthen our democracy if it includes measures which recognise the public interest in that ‘offending’ publication and gives it judicial value.

This will need a mentality shift providing recognition of a free press and of our communication freedoms as inherent pillars in our democracy. Since Abela seems to have chosen to propose a legislative draft himself rather than seek the advice of the committee of experts which the public inquiry report advised him to set up, then this legislative proposal will show whether Abela is ready to make this mentality shift.

If his proposal is some wimpy attempt, then the launch of this proposal would only serve to continue to place journalists as targets in the partisan culture of hate that Labour has fostered in the last years.