The longer it takes for the European Union and member states to enforce ‘Daphne’s Law’, the chillier the effect on free speech.
Still, until then, all the force of the law should be used to stop wealthy cowboys from abusing the system to stifle dissent rather than truly seek justice, as they invariably claim.
Daphne’s Law targets so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation, the infamous SLAPP.
A deal on the proposed directive between the European Council and the European Parliament was struck in late November. Still, those with deep pockets remain undaunted.
How else can one describe the decision by private hospital group Steward to institute legal proceedings in Spain against MaltaToday and journalist Matthew Vella? They are demanding €25,000 in damages and also that a copy of the court decision be published on the Financial Times, Le Soir and The Wall Street Journal, another substantial expense.
No doubt, there is genuine public interest in anything Steward given the controversial privatisation concessions it had inherited from Vitals Global Healthcare.
Public interest was further boosted when, declaring it null and void, four Maltese judges concluded it was a fraudulent deal that involved “collusion between Steward and senior government officials or its agencies”.
The court action taken by Steward in Spain is, therefore, a textbook example of SLAPP and another reminder about the need to properly legislate to protect a free press.
True, journalists, editors and publications must be held accountable for what they say and write. However, when society allows the wealthy and the powerful to bully others into silence, it can no longer consider itself to be truly free.
SLAPP cases impact not only journalists but the wider public because they strike right at the heart of the individual’s right to know.
Human rights – like freedom of expression – know no borders. Therefore, while ensuring the law of the land is respected, every court, anywhere in Europe and elsewhere, too, can surely distinguish between what is claimed in the formal application and the real objective of SLAPP cases.
Such lawsuits should, therefore, be dealt with expeditiously and in line with how both domestic and international courts handle evident violations of the right “to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers”.
Admittedly, that may be easier said than done, also because of what an international human rights lawyer and expert in journalists’ safety and media freedom termed at a recent conference organised by The Shift as the weaponisation of legal courses of action against journalists.
There are various ways to stifle freedom of expression and those with a lot to lose will stop at nothing, as Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination clearly proves. Other cowards may not be as brutal but can still seek ways and means to gag critics, say through SLAPPs.
Let no one think such lawsuits are rare in Malta. More than 40 such cases had been instituted against Caruana Galizia. Times of Malta is also facing a SLAPP suit in Bulgaria. CASE, the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe, last year reported that Malta had the highest rate per capita of SLAPP cases among 47 countries surveyed.
This and Steward’s decision to proceed against MaltaToday in Spain is enough to convince all of us who put our trust in the law to keep up and even exert more pressure on the government to protect at all costs the right to freedom of expression.