SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. SLAPPs abuse legal procedures to intimidate critical voices from speaking out. The intention of the party initiating a gagging procedure is primarily to silence the other party and stifle public debate.

The Belgian anti-SLAPP working group was launched as an epilogue to the “4th International Seminar on Press Freedom: Combating SLAPPs against Journalists” on December 12, 2022 in UGent (link to its report: https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/01GPBK7A7XC27407633RVV53Z0 )

I myself have a special, visual memory of this highly interesting seminar, which I summarize in a triangle of memories, and below also in images.

First angle of this triangle.

An impressive witness to this seminar was Matthew Caruana Galizia, the son of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, murdered on October 16, 2017, who had made the publication of corruption scandals her life's work (link to Foundation: https://www.daphne.foundation/en/about/ ).

At the time of her death - a car bomb blast in her Peugeot 108 - half an hour after publishing her last blog (link: https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2017/10/crook-schembri-court-today-pleading-not-crook/ )no fewer than 46 civil and 5 criminal proceedings had been brought against her, making her work as a journalist almost impossible.

And that's what a SLAPP is all about.

Second angle of this triangle.

It must have been a special moment for her son Matthew to come face to face with our Belgian Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, who opened the seminar. A special moment because the Minister appeared “virtually”, via the screen, for the simple reason that the Minister himself was in a “safe house” due to threats - an unenviable first for Belgium.

So this is already the second key figure in this seminar to receive death threats because of his legitimate work: the first was a journalist, the second a politician.

In his speech, Minister Van Quickenborne referred to the growing number of threats against journalists, such as the murder of Peter R. Devries in the Netherlands, the anti-vaccine movement, and the extreme right, each time involving “fake news” and attacks on the media and journalists. Belgium has already taken measures. Among other things, the Minister referred to the aggravating circumstance concerning attacks on a journalist, as “a person with a social function if the offence was committed in the exercise of this function” (provided for later in the law of 29 02 2024, subsequently adopted in Book II of the Penal Code, art. 111 (aggravating circumstances) in conjunction with art. 79, 4°).

The Minister's commitment in his opening statement was too valuable not to be quoted in the seminar report: ”The Minister also is a strong supporter of the proposed EU Anti-SLAPP Directive, which in its current state will apply to matters with cross-border  implications and which contains a mechanism of early dismissal of SLAPPs. This is a clear commitment that Belgium is making in the upcoming discussions in the Council. In relation to this, the Minister explained that the scope of application of the Belgian law implementing the Directive will not be limited to cross-border cases but will also cover internal situations. The Minister concluded that these debates touch at the heart of our European values, because protecting journalists is necessary in free society: one cannot exist without the other”.

This is clear language, and the Minister's thumbs-up speaks volumes..... (see photo at bottom of page).

Third angle of the triangle.

Shortly before, professor em. Dirk Voorhoof, of Ghent University, had honored me with a monumental contribution on SLAPPs in the book I was holding in my hands that day in Ghent: this singular “Liber Amicorum” which was given to me - somewhat belatedly by Covid - for my 70th birthday.

More than 50 pages (out of 535) of this book are devoted by Dirk Voorhoof to “SLAPP: reckless, vexatious or intimidating legal proceedings against the media, journalists and other ‘watchdogs’” (pp. 127- 181 - link https://epo.be/shop/de-gevierendeelde-jan-nolf/  ).

To date, there's hardly been a more comprehensive overview of the SLAPP issue in Belgium, and here I turn to my third key figure: Marc Van Ranst, professor at Leuven, a leading figure in professional medical communication during the Covid pandemic, who, like the Minister of Justice, had to be placed in a 'safe house' to ensure his physical safety from attack, but who also remains the target of hate speech and SLAPP proceedings, not least from Willem Engel.

In his book “Virologica”, to be published this February 18, Marc Van Ranst also bears witness to hate speech: examples take up 40 pages of the book. In this world of Trump II anno 2025, it's getting worse and worse.

This completes the triangle of my memories of December 12, 2022.

So here we are, with three public figures, targeted by threats of lethal force and methods in total contradiction with the foundations of our rule of law, and in particular the right to freedom of expression and information.

As the Minister of Justice has also stated, the fight against SLAPPs is a fight for the democratic rule of law, and therefore a fight for everyone.

How can we prevent public debate from being drowned out by such SLAPP threats?

Prof. em. Dirk Voorhoof and Pia Lindholm (Deputy Head of the Justice Unit in the European Commission's Justice Department) presented the new legal and political instruments being developed at European level at this seminar at the end of 2022.

Today, two years later, some of the groundwork has been laid.

The “toolbox” announced by Pia Lindholm at that time in Ghent is here, including Directive 2024/1069 of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 11, 2024 “on the protection of individuals involved in public participation against manifestly unfounded claims and abuse of process (”strategic litigation against public participation“)” (link https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L_202401069 ).

Or to put it in the words of the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, “Daphne's law is now official”!

It is now up to the Member States to transpose this directive into national law.

Our Belgian Anti-SLAPP working group - in the wake of the seminar held on 12/12/2022 - has already taken the lead, with some forty members: academics, lawyers, honorary magistrates, representatives of the media, citizens' initiatives and NGOs.

Our trilingual website (link: https://www.slapp.be/nl ) provides information on the SLAPP phenomenon, with numerous examples.

Indeed, there is an urgent need to train magistrates and lawyers to recognize “de lege lata” the SLAPP problem now, and then to deal with the new legislation.

The Daphne law now exists, thanks to the 2024 directive, but we still have to make it national in Belgium by May 2026. So time is running out.

Our (bilingual) Belgian working group has drawn up a “ready-to-use” (trilingual) model law with anti-SLAPP measures. Logically, the model law necessarily goes beyond the simple transposition of the European anti-SLAPP directive.

Logical: limiting the scope of the law to cross-border cases would mean that the law would have virtually no impact in practice: after all, over 90% of SLAPP cases are not cross-border, but take place within a single country.

Transposition must not result in an empty (national) box - or, to put it in the old French pharmaceutical parlance: “une poudre de perlimpinpin”.

Necessary: while the directive focuses on civil cases, the proposed model law also includes measures relating to criminal proceedings, given that several SLAPP suits have also taken place in Belgium in the context of criminal proceedings. On the contrary, if the anti-SLAPP law applied only to civil proceedings, more SLAPPs would be likely to occur in criminal proceedings, whereas criminal cases are certain to have an even more intimidating or deterrent effect.

Indeed, the model law also contains recommendations from the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the European Commission aimed at increasing vigilance against SLAPPs and providing better support for victims.

This will enable the new federal government, Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden and parliament to get to work straight away on transforming the EU directive into important Belgian law on schedule, i.e. by 2026.

After all, the timely (because mandatory) transposition of EU directives is also mentioned verbatim in the coalition agreement for the new Belgian government (p. 61, 136 and 193 - although these expressis verbis concern other matters): quod abundat, non nocet.

We can't imagine our Belgian government engaging in cherry-picking when it comes to these essential European obligations.

After all, not only do SLAPPs pose a threat to democratic debate, they also unnecessarily overburden our judicial system.

In this context, the title (p. 159) of the coalition agreement for the new Belgian government is also a justified plea in itself for “justice as an efficient, effective, accessible and customer-oriented service provider”.

The main features of the model law are:

- possibility of quick dismissal by the court of a clearly unfounded SLAPP claim (within 30 days)
- financial guarantee by the plaintiff (SLAPP'er), so that the defendant who wins the lawsuit is assured of effective compensation by the plaintiff
- clear criteria and indicators that help the court qualify a claim as SLAPP and convict the plaintiff of abuse of process
- fines of up to EUR 25,000 for the SLAPP - plaintiff, and damages and compensation for litigation costs for the defendant
- the possibility of not enforcing in Belgium decisions from third countries that qualify as SLAPP under Belgian law
- awareness-raising campaigns, training and information about SLAPPs in Belgium, in cooperation with the FIRM (Federal Institute for Human Rights), among others.

Link to the model law in Dutch, French and English on the website of the Belgian Anti- SLAPP working group : https://www.slapp.be/nl

News items: https://www.slapp.be/nl/nieuws and https://www.slapp.be/nl/feed-archief

RSS Feed: https://www.slapp.be/nl/rss.xml

In the news already:

- De Juristenkrant  12 02 2025: https://shop.wolterskluwer.be/fr_be/Juristenkrant-incl-Jura-Campus-students-only-sBPKLUSTUJ/

- Knack 12 02 2025: https://www.knack.be/nieuws/belgie/justitie/misbruik-van-juridische-procedures-om-kritische-stemmen-te-intimideren-met-deze-modelwet-kunnen-minister-en-parlement-meteen-aan-de-slag/

- Inforrm’s Blog 12 02 2025: https://inforrm.org/2025/02/12/belgium-a-model-for-the-transposition-of-the-eu-anti-slapp-directive-dirk-voorhoof/#more-58788

1. •Media report 13 02 2025: Belgium, a model for the transposition of the EU anti-SLAPP Directive Dirk Voorhoof https://mediareport.nl/press-law/13022025/belgium-a-model-for-the-transposition-of-the-eu-anti-slapp-directive-dirk-voorhoof/?lang=en