Encouraging more (and better) anti-SLAPP training

Today - Wednesday 2 August - marks the closing date for comments on the Council of Europe’s Draft Recommendation on Countering SLAPPs. The draft Recommendation is an important contribution to the fight back against SLAPPs - though not binding on Council of Europe members, it will have significant normative force over 46 countries. If our concerns about the proposed EU Directive come to pass, the Council of Europe’s position will become ever more important.

In our comments about the Council of Europe’s draft Recommendation, we have focused on the part of the document (Section IV) that relates to Education, Training and Awareness-Raising.

Clearly, we think that training legal professionals is a key element of any effort to limit the impact of SLAPPs on public debate. We welcome the Draft Recommendation’s recognition of this, alongside public awareness-raising. However, we think the remaining parts of Section IV are rather general and broad. As such, we have suggested that the draft could be improved in the following ways.

Specify the bodies that are responsible for training

The Draft Recommendation’s Article 52 says that “member states should encourage relevant bodies to give prominence to this recommendation in educational and training programmes”. However, it does not specify or even suggest who these relevant bodies are.

We think this is a missed opportunity to promote particular forms of anti-SLAPP training that are particularly badly needed, not least training aimed at judges. Other types of organisations that could be specified include law faculties, professional associations and bar associations. We have, of course, collaborated with several organisations of this type over the course of the PATFox project in order to reach the largest number of legal professionals (and future legal professionals) we can.

Another approach the Council of Europe could make is to suggests who could be the recipients of anti-SLAPP training - this could include lawyers, attorneys, judges, legal scholars, public bodies and others.

Emphasise the importance of collaboration with civil society

SLAPPs are a legal problem with real-life consequences for the functioning of our democratic societies. By silencing media investigations, human rights defenders, environmentalists and others, SLAPPs limit the extent of public debate and threaten to obstruct the resolution of pressing issues in society and public policy.

As an anti-SLAPP training project drawn from civil society, we of course feel strongly that organisations like ours - which understand the impact of SLAPPs and may be supporting the targets of SLAPPs, or even be the targets of SLAPPs themselves - have an important contribution to make for those seeking to understand the nature and impact of this kind of legal action.

Recognise the whole range of SLAPP targets

In a similar way, we think the Recommendation could be more explicit about the range of individuals and organisations who are vulnerable to being targeted with SLAPPs.

Article 53 defines media actors “and other public watchdogs” as the groups most likely to be faced with SLAPPs. While journalists and media organisations are the most well-known group to be regularly targeted with SLAPPs, the list of affected groups includes environmental and other activists, human rights defenders, community groups, civil society organisations and researchers.

We think there is a danger that, if the existing language is taken as a guide the training envisioned under the Recommendation could be unduly narrow. In particular, we think it is important not to create an impression that SLAPPs are an issue that relates primarily, or even solely, to established media organisations.

Our full submission to the Council of Europe can be found here.