Abstract
The Di Nicola bill, due to be passed into law this summer, should reduce vexatious lawsuits against Italian journalists.
“I felt a very strong sense of tiredness,” the La Repubblica reporter told Index. “You never get used to being sued – each time is a blow to the heart, a hassle and a waste of your time.”
After having to confront 126 lawsuits – 15 are still ongoing – she says that she has developed a “phobia”. “Now, almost every article I write is met with a nearly automatic lawsuit,” she said.
Italy has failed to curb vexatious lawsuits, also known as Slapps (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). These differ from “simple” defamation lawsuits because they set out with little or no chance of success, ask a disproportionate amount for damages and primarily aim to silence critics.
In 2016, a bill came close to reforming the code of civil procedure, introducing penalties for vexatious lawsuits and generating optimism among journalists and free speech NGOs. But then it stalled in parliament and was killed.
But a new bill, named after Primo Di Nicola, the journalist-turned-MP who promoted it, is generating hope. Like its predecessors, it would deter suitors by introducing sanctions of up to 50% of the damages they asked for if their lawsuit was ruled to be vexatious. The bill was presented in 2018, and stalled in parliament for months like the other bills. But in late 2019, the text was tabled for discussion at the Senate and could be approved as soon as June 2020.
For some, it represented a glimmer of hope and a call to arms. “If the [Di Nicola] bill should again get bogged down in parliament, we will have to gather all reporters in parliament to request that politicians stop just expressing solidarity for journalists – and legislate instead,” said Giuseppe Giulietti, the president of the National Federation of the Italian Press.
Angeli’s energies have been drained to the extent that sometimes she feels tempted to settle the remaining lawsuits, giving up the fight even though she believes she is innocent – although it is a temptation that she would never allow herself to give in to.
Crucially, her feelings are not a lesson on the dangers of shoddy reporting. Angeli’s work took down members of the mafia and has won her a plethora of awards. After she and her family were forced to live under police protection in 2013, her life was found so inspiring it was turned into a film.
Her case illustrates how vexatious defamation lawsuits are often used to intimidate journalists and pressure them to self-censor. For many facing steep legal fees and lengthy trials, dropping an investigation is not an act of surrender, but self-preservation.
“If someone is backed by a strong publisher, they can resist,” said Giulietti. “But if they are freelancers, or small newspapers, they’ll make a reflection before carrying on with their work.”
After all, if lawsuits have managed to wear down someone as experienced and accomplished as Angeli, who is backed by a strong publisher, what happens to the others?
While not exclusive to Italy, vexatious defamation lawsuits have proliferated in the country to the point that Carlo Verna, president of the Order of Journalists, has called them a “democratic emergency”. According to the most recent analysis by Ossigeno per l’Informazione, an Italian observatory on threats to journalists, almost 70% of the 9,000-plus lawsuits that courts examined in 2016 never went to trial.
In part, this is because – unlike in other countries – there are virtually no drawbacks to suing for defamation in Italy. For example, laws fail to punish those who file spurious suits and defendants can be bound to pay legal fees even if they are not found guilty, making defendants easy targets and easy victims.
Politicians are often the perpetrators of Slapps in Italy, according to Paola Rosà, who – together with colleague Claudia Pierobon and the Balkan and Caucasus Observatory – has studied the problem for the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.
A woman marches on the streets of Rome at a protest to demand freedom of the press in May, 2019
CREDIT: Andrea Ronchini/Getty
“One lawsuit is enough to ruin your life,” she said. “It means wasting time, [needing] money, finding a lawyer, dealing with mail and paperwork.
“Journalists won’t be so sure to carry on with their work if they fear they might have to sell their home to pay legal fees,” she added. “It’s not just psychological intimidation, it disrupts a journalist’s daily life.”
For many, the financial threat of legal fees hits the hardest.
“If you face this uncertainty – you never know how it ends with the law – then you don’t take risks, you don’t invest,” said Luca Muzzioli, editor of Volleyball.it. Muzzioli carried on working as he fought a €2 million claim by politician Mauro Fabris, national president of the Women’s Volleyball League Serie A, between 2009 and 2015 and is now facing the threat of a new lawsuit by a club president, among other forms of intimidation. As an entrepreneur and publisher who often relies only on his own forces to keep the site going, he explains that even the relatively tiny sum of legal fees can scare a small publisher away from critical reporting, although he stresses it hasn’t in his case.
“If you know you could end up needing €10,000 for legal fees, would you use the money to hire a contributor, travel to the world cup or expand the site?” he said.
To carry on reporting fearlessly under the constant threat of litigation requires determination, courage and “recklessness”, a pressure that few can endure, says Antonella Napoli, editor-in-chief of Focus on Africa and board member of free-speech watchdog Articolo 21.
Like Angeli, she has also been at the centre of a case demonstrating the grotesque levels of intimidation that Slapps can reach in Italy. Napoli has faced only one Slapp case in her career so far, but it is one that has dragged on for a whopping 22 years.
It started in 1998 when she reported on a politician’s misappropriation of public funds. She based her report on official documents and police records, but the politician decided to cite her for damages anyway. When he died, his family picked up the fight.
“You feel gagged, tied, especially if you are a freelance journalist,” she said. “If you get your hands on big news about a public figure with the tendency to sue, you’ll think twice. I have never stopped, but many give up because they fear consequences that they can’t afford.”
Some have taken the news of the change in the law with a pinch of salt, conscious of the many botched attempts over the last 20 years, and the situation feels like another uphill battle sending ripples of a familiar sense of tiredness.
“I don’t believe in reform anymore,” said a disillusioned Angeli. “If politicians are the top perpetrators, why would anyone commit to something that could backfire against them?”
Legal Threats to Journalists: Call for Contributions
Index on Censorship has recently launched a year-long research and policy project on vexatious law suits (Slapps), looking at their impact across Europe. It will include interviews with investigative journalists and lawyers. If you are a journalist and would be willing to be interviewed for the research, please email: