Debate: Protection of journalists and human rights defenders from manifestly unfounded or abusive court proceedings
Date: MONDAY, 10 JULY 2023
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

Indeed, Madame Strugariu, I promise this to the family of Daphne Caruana Galizia that we will legislate against the anti—SLAPP cases, and so here we are. We have been seeing that the journalists face a multitude of challenges, and also human rights defenders. Our annual rule of law reports regularly identify issues that affect the freedom and pluralism of media in the EU and challenges to civil society, including rights defenders. Journalists or rights defenders are still being targeted for doing their jobs, and this is not acceptable. More than that, I feel, I see that the justice system is abused, and as somebody who coordinates also justice policy in the EU, I have to repeat: this is unacceptable. While it is mainly the responsibility of Member States to ensure that these key actors for democracy can do their work without constraints, we also have a duty to support the ecosystem at EU level. Over the past two years, the Commission has taken a number of initiatives to help improve the health of the media sector and of the rights defenders. We have expanded our financial support in the area of media freedom and pluralism within the Creative Europe programme. We adopted a recommendation on the safety of journalists in September 2021. We proposed the Media Freedom Act in September 2022. We adopted a report on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights looking at the role of civil society, and we proposed in April 2022 a package to counter strategic lawsuits against public participation, so—called SLAPPs, which is what we are discussing here today. I am very grateful for having such a discussion. We need to act to counter the SLAPP phenomenon and prevent it from growing. Our objective is clear to protect journalists and other important civil society actors against abusive court proceedings because they should use their time and resources in order to be the watchdogs needed for the health of our democracies and not to fight abusive court proceedings. To do this, we need a strong system of safeguards and deterrents, and we need it sooner rather than later. Time is of the essence. Speaking about time, I am beyond time. Can I have one more minute, Mr President? Thank you. I believe that this is an objective which is shared by the European Parliament, that we need to fight a growing phenomenon because it reaches levels of seriousness that endanger our democratic societies. I would like to thank the Parliament for your efforts and for the swift progress made on this important file. In particular, I welcome the fact that many of the adopted amendments in your report show a high level of agreement with our approach, including when it comes to important elements such as having a definition of cross—border cases and compensation for damages. Parliament suggests several improvements which we look at positively and introduces two entirely new chapters which we look forward to discussing. That said, in our view, it would be preferable to regulate questions of international jurisdiction and applicable law in the two general instruments that deal with these matters horizontally. It was already mentioned here the Brussels Ia and Rome II Regulations. The review process for both instruments is underway, and SLAPP—specific considerations are very much part of that review. I would also like to recall that the Commission’s anti—SLAPP initiative is a comprehensive package. Our proposed directive provides cross—border civil procedure safeguards against SLAPPs, and in addition, we have also adopted, as you know, a horizontal recommendation which applies to all kinds of SLAPP cases, be they civil, criminal or administrative. It covers cross—border as well as domestic cases. Some elements introduced by Parliament’s report are closely related to topics touched upon in the recommendation. We are open to consideration as to what the best policy mix is in relation to these elements.