SLAPPs have become so widespread in the Philippines that EDLC took the unusual step of hiring a coordinator there to manage EDLC’s efforts to assist environmental defender SLAPP victims. Local groups share these concerns, leading to a recent effort to combat the problem through comprehensive national anti-SLAPP legislation that will be introduced in 2008 in the Philippine Congress.
Winston & Strawn and the Philippine Anti-SLAPP Law
EDLC was asked by elected representatives and NGO opponents of SLAPP suits in the Philippines to obtain American legal assistance in the effort to enact national anti-SLAPP legislation. At EDLC’s request, a team of lawyers at Winston & Strawn agreed to help.
The lawyers are reviewing the current draft of the legislation, and will offer comments and suggestions and propose additional provisions. They are also drafting a report on the SLAPP experience in the U.S. and in other countries, as well as analyzing the SLAPP problem under international human rights law. The report will be presented to the Philippine House of Representatives to show the severity of the problem and the need for the proposed legislation. The lawyers have been invited to come to the Philippines to testify before the House of Representatives when the bill is heard.
If the proposed law is enacted, it will mark the first time a country has created national anti-SLAPP law. Whether successful or not, proponents of the law hope that it will spur similar legislative proposals in other countries to help environmental defenders “SLAPP back.”
The Legislature finds that there has been a disturbing increase in lawsuits brought primarily to chill the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for the redress of grievances.
-California Code of Civil Procedure Sec. 425.16