Free-standing legislation against strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) is needed to end an unjust system in which the roles of crime victims and offenders are reversed by the legal process, an event in parliament heard last night.

Parliamentarians, journalists, affected individuals and media lawyers were relaunching a campaign for a UK anti-SLAPP law following the demise of a private members bill earlier this year. The bill, introduced by former Labour MP Wayne David and backed by the government, passed the committee stage in the House of Commons but fell away weeks later in the runup to the general election. 

Soon after, David Lammy MP, now foreign secretary, said he wanted to ban SLAPPs but no such measure appeared in Labour’s manifesto or the King’s speech. 

Speakers at last night’s event said SLAPPs had created a system where ‘only the very very wealthiest’ could set the rules for truth or privacy. 

Verity Nevitt, co-founder of The Gemini Project, a non-profit group which aims to end sexual violence, told of being sued for defamation, misuse of private information and harassment by a man who sexually assaulted her. She said: ‘So much was taken from me when I was sexually abused but I still had my voice. It felt like in suing me he was taking that final piece.

‘He denied what had happened, used his witness statement to attack me directly instead of addressing the allegations and used the legal process to reverse the role of the victim and offender by making us the defendants in the case.’

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She added: ‘We were forced to engage in a legal process which took so much time and money and energy away from us. It should not have been allowed to happen and our courts should not be misused in this way.

‘A moment like MeToo and the use of SLAPPs in response to it is why our defamation laws need to be looked at again. The only logical conclusion…is to establish a standalone anti-SLAPP law which prevents people like my rapist from attempting to sue their victims into silence’.

Media defence specialist Rupert Cowper-Coles, partner at international firm RPC, said: ‘We have an extraordinary expensive and complex way of resolving media litigation. The same process that is used for resolving the biggest commercial litigation court cases with banks around the world litigating in London is used to resolve a spat over a tweet which was up for one hour.

‘Pro bono and CFAs are a sticking plaster. When you have a system that is simply this expensive, free speech isn’t very free. Access to justice, whether you are a claimant or a defendant, is a good thing and we shouldn’t have a system where it is only the very very wealthiest who can argue about what is true, what is private. That is fundamentally always going to lead to unfair results.’

SLAPPs were defined in UK law for the first time in 2023 under amendments to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill. The amendments give judges the ability to classify legal action as a SLAPP as defined by the bill as well as early dismissal powers against lawsuits designed to evade scrutiny and stifle freedom of speech. The measures relate only to cases connected with economic crime.

Director of the Foreign Police Centre and co-chair of the UK Anti-SLAPP coalition, Susan Coughtrie, said: ‘At the moment what we’re really in need of…is a legislative vehicle. I know we have our detractors and there are people who say “oh we don’t see enough cases” but that is the point. The point is to hide these cases, the point is to sue people into silence. One case is enough. These are topics of public interest and therefore we shouldn’t say “there aren’t enough” we should say “why are there this many?”.’

Speaking at the event, Conservative MP Sir John Hayes said: ‘We have this extremely good record [of independent free journalism] but for this one area where the UK has been labelled as the sort of capital of SLAPPs.

‘This is a cross-party effort. We came really close [earlier this year]. I hope that effort is not going to be wasted and a lot of the work that was done can be resurrected under this government because there is no doubt that we do need legislation.’