SLAPP LAWSUITS AS A TECHNOLOGY OF «LEGAL INTIMIDATION»

Abstract

The article explores the category of «SLAPP lawsuit», which encompasses claims against public activists who raise issues of high political or social significance. SLAPP lawsuits are filed to stop critical speech, intimidate individuals who know about violations of law and abuse of rights. Through litigation, SLAPP claimants dismiss discussions of corporate social responsibility and disguise their own bad faith claims as valid civil law claims. The author sets the purposes of determining the key properties that identify SLAPP lawsuits, their impact on the processes of functioning and development of civil society, and establishing the specifics of procedural tactics used by SLAPP claimants. The methodological basis of the research consists of the method of comparative jurisprudence, analysis, synthesis and the speciallegal method. The study concludes that SLAPP lawsuits have a negative impact on access to information in civil society and on the possibility of exercising the right to freedom of expression. In addition, the author specifies the main features of SLAPP lawsuits: justification by reference to non-existent factual circumstances and the use of ambiguous provisions of law interpretation. The study reveals that SLAPP claimants often resort to the tactics of procedural burdensome litigation, making it an excessively costly and resourceintensive process aimed solely at exhausting the resources of the other party and intimidating it.

Keywords

• abuse of right
• civil society
• accessibility of information
• public scrutiny
• freedom of expression
• defamation