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The Bulgarian parliament passed a law on Wednesday aiming to better protect journalists, activists and others from abusive lawsuits designed to censor or intimidate critics.
In doing so, Bulgaria has gone beyond the minimum European Union requirement in a bid to protect the media in a country where the freedom of the press has come under sustained pressure.
Known as strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP), the use of legal action is intended to silence or financially bankrupt reporters, whistleblowers and rights groups, rather than win the case outright.
Most SLAPPs are for defamation or reputational harm and tend to be used by those rich and powerful enough to afford the necessary lawyers’ fees.
While the reform implements a European directive from 2024, which requires member states to protect journalists from abusive cross-border lawsuits within the bloc, Bulgaria has also chosen to extend the safeguards to purely domestic cases.
In particular, it allows for clearly unfounded claims to be thrown out at an early stage, requires the courts to rule within short deadlines and toughens the conditions under which defendants may face interim measures such as asset seizures.
The new rules will also apply to proceedings already under way but which have not yet had their first hearing.
Lawyer Alexander Kashumov, who has been involved in various SLAPP lawsuits, called the law “a major step forward.”
According to Kashumov, dozens of such cases, each involving “tens or even hundreds of thousands of euros,” are currently before the courts, with a “paralysing effect on freedom of expression.”
In its latest global press freedom ranking, Reporters Without Borders put Bulgaria at 71 out of 180 countries, saying press freedom in the country is “fragile and unstable.”
Additional sources • AFP