Now that the Opposition has tabled a Private Members Bill, which aims to stem the tide of SLAPP lawsuits the Maltese press is being threatened with, it is now time for the government to back the Bill and to see it passed unanimously through the House of Representatives as soon as possible.

The government, however, is still to react to the proposed Bill, which is somewhat disconcerting considering its grandiose talk of media freedom and also considering the positive steps it has taken recently in the new Media and Defamation Bill, which was unanimously approved by Parliament in its second reading stage.

That Bill will also prevent SLAPPs from being levelled against the Maltese media here in Malta, and also very positively does away with criminal libel, precautionary warrants against journalists and with the practice of filing multiple lawsuits against a journalist on basically the same facts.

Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) lawsuits are another matter altogether – they are intended solely to censor, intimidate, and silence critics such as the media by burdening them with an excessively costly legal defence until they abandon their criticism. The aim of such lawsuits is not necessarily to secure a legal victory, but, rather, to prevent the media from exercising its right and sacrosanct duty to inform the public about matters of public interest.

MEP David Casa has asked the European Commission to investigate the SLAPP lawsuits that have been threatened in Malta, which he has labelled as abusive and tantamount to harassment of media houses, arguing that the practice of intimidating media houses with multi-million euro lawsuits in jurisdictions outside the EU is unacceptable and requires an EU response.

The fact of the matter is that an offended company unwilling to face Maltese justice for offences it alleges were committed in Maltese jurisdiction – and instead resorts to SLAPP lawsuits in other jurisdictions with the sole intention of gagging the media and to erase elements of this country’s historical record – should not be welcome in a supposedly democratic country such as ours in the first place.

Jurisdiction shopping is not on, but that is precisely what is happening.

The fact of the matter is that this new menace of SLAPP lawsuits being faced by the Maltese media cannot be stopped by Maltese legislation, but the Maltese courts can limit the damages awarded by foreign courts in such cases. And that is what the Private Members Bill seeks to do.

Parliament of course cannot prohibit a person from suing the Maltese media in a foreign court but should that happen, the issue would be whether a judgment granting large amounts in damages would be unenforceable in Malta for reasons of public policy.

As matters stand, that would be something which the Maltese Courts would have to decide upon, after a lawsuit against a Maltese media house is lost in a foreign jurisdiction and claims are made in the Maltese courts to have the damages awarded.

What the Private Members’ Bill seeks to legislate on is preventing the execution of any judgement of any SLAPP lawsuit from being enforced in Malta once the defendant is a Maltese resident, or a Maltese domiciled person, or an entity which normally operates in Malta.

Seeking to sue a Maltese media house in a jurisdiction with far different economies of scale and where libel damages grossly outweigh those provided for in Maltese legislation is downright abusive. Any such entity that feels it has been slandered could very well open that case in Malta, especially if that entity operates in Malta itself.

Should this behaviour be allowed to continue without the correct legal safeguards being put in place, literally any foreign company or person operating in Malta can very easily threaten a lawsuit in another jurisdiction and the cost of defending that lawsuit itself is still crippling.

As such, while the Private Members Bill tabled this week may limit damages awarded afterwards by the Maltese courts, it still does not completely protect the Maltese media… but it’s a good start.

If the government believes in the fine words it expresses about media freedoms, it should put its figurative money where its mouth is and back the Opposition’s Bill immediately.