SLAPP cases in Bulgaria and the way ahead

Published in 2022, The Justice Question includes interviews with 15 Bulgarian journalists who have faced legal proceedings in connection with their work

There is no research conducted in Bulgaria about the number of cases with extensive SLAPP elements. However, in recent years, this topic is the subject of public discussions and monitoring by non-governmental organizations, including the Anti-Corruption Fund (ACF), and the Association of European Journalists (AEJ) among others.

On the other hand,the Media Development Center has started organising training on Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) for legal counsel and attorneys in Bulgaria. The training is aimed both at those who have had experience defending SLAPP cases and also those who are interested in learning about it, as well as experts who are willing to participate actively in discussions and share experience in the field.

In December 2022, AEJ’s Bulgarian chapter organized a conference New horizons in journalism, in which one of the main topics was the trend of intimidatory lawsuits against journalists lodged by wealthy and influential people. But the phenomenon of SLAPPs in Bulgaria is wider than the scope of abusive litigation envisioned in the draft EU Directive. At the conference, SLAPP cases employed by state authorities, not only by politicians, were recognized as specific characteristics of the Bulgarian public environment.

Reported cases against media and journalists, as well as case law of the European Court of Human Rights’ decisions, illustrate proceedings (administrative, civil, criminal, and disciplinary) that have been filed improperly. Such cases have prompted legal entities and individuals to impose self-censorship on matters of public interest and to end publications or investigations about the administration of justice, the distribution of public funds, compromising transactions involving the heads of state institutions, the concentration of state resources in an insolvent bank (Corporate Commercial Bank – CCB) that is currently under criminal investigation, inactive oversight institutions leading to the bankruptcy of the same bank, and the concentration of media ownership imposing limitations on media freedom.

In 2022, the University Publishing House St. Kliment Ohridski published the book The Justice Question. Journalists under trial in Bulgaria by Assoc. Dr. Zhana Popova and Prof. Dr. Snezhana Popova from the Faculty of Journalism. The book contains interviews with 15 journalists brought to trial in connection with their work. It also deals with the problems related to such trials. One of the conclusions of the research is that some of the journalists under trial do not provide reasons that their work is in the public interest. As a result arguments about the balance between competing rights - the right to freedom of expression and information and the right to private and family life – are not a main topic of discussion in these cases.

This is a key area where training lawyers in SLAPP defence methods could make a real difference to the targets of abusive litigation in Bulgaria.

Lawsuits with SLAPP elements burden the lives and businesses of those they are brought against, both financially and existentially. The duration of these lawsuits creates legal uncertainty and consumes the time and resources of the journalists under trial.

Another case in Bulgaria illustrates the use of proceedings and cases with SLAPP elements over a period of several years (from 2009 to the beginning of 2023) against businessman and media owner, Ivo Prokopiev. Various proceedings have been used against him: massive tax and administrative inspections, administrative sanctions, civil cases, criminal proceedings against him and his publishing business, seizure and confiscation of property for long periods of time, and attacks against journalists working in his media. Most of these cases concluded with rulings in favor of Mr. Prokopiev and the legal entities in which he is the owner or manager.

There are other landmark cases that can be considered as an illustration of the scale of the cases with SLAPP-like elements in Bulgaria.

In the case of Miroslava Todorova v. Bulgaria of 19 October 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the disciplinary prosecution of a judge was not conducted for the purpose provided for in the law, but because of her active positions in relation to justice issues in Bulgaria, being chairman of the Bulgarian Judges Association.

The case of Elena Yoncheva, a Bulgarian journalist and politician (member of the 44th National Assembly (NA) and MEP since 2019) also contains elements of SLAPP due to the fact that the prosecutor's office opened criminal proceedings following statements she had made about spending public funds. Yoncheva was charged with money laundering in connection with a loan she had received from a bank that subsequently went bankrupt (Corporate Commercial Bank, cited above). The European Parliament refused to lift her immunity as an MEP so that she could be prosecuted in Bulgaria, arguing that criminal proceedings should not be used as a political weapon and that the charges had been brought to the prosecutor's office by two of Yoncheva's political opponents eight years (2018) after the alleged crimes had taken place, with no convincing explanation for the delay.

Another example is an ongoing defamation case by a judge against the online portal Mediapool.bg, which, according to the site's editor-in-chief Stoyana Georgieva, has made it impossible to pay reporters' salaries due to the site's modest financial resources, and has made journalists more cautious fearing the consequences when writing about potentially corrupt influencers.