Activist Rights

Legal threats silencing activists

Estimated reading: 2 minutes

Some activists in “Australia” have received direct or indirect threats of legal action trying to silence them.

These threats could be a letter from a developer, a public official, or corporate director threatening to sue for defamation or some other form of legal action.

People who have written letters to their local paper about a development project, published books or produced reports, leaflets or posters, or made public statements, have received legal threats.

The authors of books, websites and even student theses can be targeted.

Corporations with massive resources will often respond to criticism by issuing legal threats against volunteer community groups or individuals.

Corporations sometimes do this even if they don’t have good prospects at winning – the aim is to financially drain the activists.

In the United States these types of legal threats have been called “SLAPPs” (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) as they have the effect of hindering or discouraging public campaigning.

According to Free Speech Victoria,

“The most insidious form of censorship that is widely practised in Australia today is the use and abuse of the defamation laws and the threat of libel actions.”

Legal threats, even if they do not have much prospect of ever making it to court, can deter people participating on an issue.

They can have a ‘chill effect’ on other people getting involved and can tie campaigns up in costly legal advice and proceedings.

Some industry groups and governments will press for repressive laws or use the threat of claims for damages, inquiries or existing regulations in an attempt to stifle direct action protests.

Most legal threats are just threats in the forms of official letters or public statements. They commonly use the law of defamation, common law torts or refer to the Australian Consumer Law as a part of the threat.

Only a tiny percentage of legal threats ever go to court. There are also lots of examples of a legal threat backfiring on a company by increasing the profile of a campaign and building support for the activists.

The structure of an organisation can help determine its exposure to civil liability (being sued).

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