IPI warns of chilling effect of abuse of EU defamation laws

The world's oldest global press free dom organisation drew those conclusions on the basis of the results of a "Perceptions Survey," whose goal was to measure the impact of defamation laws in the EU and the five candidates for membership in the 28-nation bloc. Albania had not yet received official candidate status at the time of the launch of the study last May, so it was not covered by it.

The perceptions survey included 46 questions focusing on different aspects, including the respondent's journalistic background, their awareness of criminal and civil law on defamation, insult and blasphemy, as well as their knowledge and experience with criminal law and civil law, and the legal resources that are available to them. The provisional results, which were released in July, showed that nearly 60 percent of all journalists, editors and media executives who participated in it reported that they or their colleagues had been targeted in criminal or civil proceedings.

"Our survey results provide, at the very least, justification for concern about a chilling effect resulting from abuse of the EU's defamation laws," the IPI said in the "Perceptions Survey" document, citing four concrete findings.

One such finding was that 85 percent of respondents believed that criminal or civil defamation proceedings "were commonly brought for an im proper purpose, such as chilling free expression or interfering with journalism". A slightly smaller share of surveyed journalists (80 percent) thought that those laws had a medium or high impact on the press in their country, while fewer than half of all respondents felt that defamation proceedings were being dealt with in a fair manner by their national judicial system.

The Vienna-based watchdog was particularly alarmed by the fact that "37 percent of respondents said that defamation cases brought against themselves or against colleagues had caused them to change their behaviour as a journalist," with many explaining that they had "become more cautious, particularly in investigative reporting".

Based on the respondents' answers to the survey questions, the IPI also concluded that journalists needed to be provided training on the state of defamation laws in their country to beef their capacity to defend their rights in the event they face defamation proceedings.

The "Perceptions Survey" was the second of three documents on defamation the organization released last summer, the first one of them providing an overview of defamation law in the EU ("Report on Defamation Law") and the third, a summary of international standards on freedom of expression and defamation ("International Standards").