Training for 93 Law Students – How to Defend Journalists in Cases of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation
Students from the Faculty of Law and Administrative Sciences from Suceava and the Faculty of Law from Sibiu learned about SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation) and how to defend journalists and human rights defenders in such cases. Cristina Lupu, Executive Director of the Center for Independent Journalism (CIJ), held a workshop in Suceava on 16 November and one in Sibiu on 13 December. A total of 93 students learned more about SLAPPs and the PATFox project.
The PATFox project (Pioneering Anti-SLAPP Training for Freedom of Expression) aims to train professionals from the legal field to defend journalists and human rights defenders in SLAPP cases which aim at intimidating them. The project is also developing Europe’s first anti-SLAPP curriculum to facilitate the training process in countries where SLAPP trials are widespread, including Romania.
Freedom of expression is a fundamental right of citizens, and the Romanian press has encountered difficulties in the past years when journalists were sued for investigations reporting cases of corruption involving politicians or public institutions. For future lawyers and professionals from the legal field to be aware of this danger, they need to be aware of SLAPP cases and how they can be solved. In this way, they can contribute to defending the right to freedom of expression of journalists or other members of the civil sector.
Discussions with the students started with the importance of freedom of expression and how it is restricted when journalists or activists are sued in order to be intimidated. The beginning of the course focused on the definition of SLAPPs and the presentation of the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of persons involved in public mobilisation actions against manifestly unfounded or abusive legal proceedings.
Afterwards, the students were introduced to some of the SLAPP cases in Romania and how they were solved in court. All the special provisions of the Romanian Civil Code that refer to personal freedoms and the ECHR criteria for balancing Art. 8 and Art.10 that can be used in SLAPP cases were presented.
The PATFox project is co-funded by the European Commission. So far the CIJ organised training sessions on SLAPP cases for lawyers from the Bucharest Bar Association and the rest of the country, contributed to the first anti-SLAPP curriculum in Europe and produced materials for lawyers, including a case study on litigation against public participation in Romania. More information about the project is available here.
