The package consists of two proposals: a guideline and a recommendation –
“With an unprecedented initiative – explained the Vice-President of the European Commission Vera Jourova – we have decided to present a package of proposals to protect journalists, which is also a duty to those with whom, like the Maltese Daphne Caruana Galizia, he paid his life , to defend the right to exercise his activity without conditioning. We promised to intervene and we did it,” Jourova added, urging, among other things, all EU countries to deal with crimes in the press under civil rather than criminal law. The one put forward by Brussels and also by the European The package requested by Parliament consists of two proposals: a directive and a recommendation.
All the news against abuse of complaints –
The new European law, which will have to be approved by the Council and the European Parliament before it comes into effect, introduces several innovations to protect victims of slapp, the acronym used to denote a lawsuit-based strategy aimed at targeting those to gag those who denounce cases of corruption, violations of civil rights, or other crimes against the public interest. “In a democracy – added Jourova – wealth and power cannot give anyone the right to defy the truth”. In order to counteract the trend towards abuse of complaints and legal proceedings, which often only aim at enforcing silence, the Commission proposes a plan based on three main measures. Based on the possibility for the courts to decide at short notice on the dismissal of “obviously unfounded” cases. In this case, the applicant bears all costs, including the costs of the lawyer appointed by the defense. To be even more drastic, the EU measures then provide for sanctioning the right to compensation for the non-pecuniary and material damage suffered by the wrongly accused party. But also the possibility for judges to impose so-called “deterrent penalties” against unfounded claims.