MAJIEDT J simply to waste the resources and time of the other party, until they abandon their defence. SLAPP suits are frequently brought as defamation claims, abuse of process, malicious prosecution or delictual liability cases.39 Their aim is to intimidate and scare a litigant who may previously have brought to light matters of public concern.40 [43] A common feature of SLAPP suits is that the primary aim of the litigation is not to enforce a legitimate right. The objective is to silence or fluster the opponent, tie them up with paperwork or bankrupt them with legal costs. Therefore, the hallmark of a SLAPP suit is that it often (but not necessarily always) lacks merit, and that it is brought with the goals of obtaining an economic or other advantage over a party by increasing the cost of litigation to the point that the party’s case will be weakened or abandoned. They are primarily legal proceedings that are intended to silence critics by burdening them with the cost of litigation in the hope that their criticism or opposition will be abandoned or weakened. In a typical SLAPP suit, the plaintiff does not necessarily expect to win its case, but will have accomplished its objective if the defendant yields to the intimidation, mounting legal costs or exhaustion and abandons its defence and also, importantly, its criticism of and opposition to the project or development. 41 It appears from this initial analysis that both merit and motive play a role in the test for a SLAPP suit and the one may inform the other. [44] SLAPP suits are not brought only in the context of environmental litigation, they are encountered in various other types of litigation. It bears repetition that environmentalists appear to be quite active worldwide, and also in our country. A further factor is that “meaningful public participation” is a key requirement in Murombo and Valentine “SLAPP suits: An emerging obstacle to public interest environmental litigation in South Africa” (2011) 27 South African Journal on Human Rights 82. 39 See: Hartzler “Protecting Informed Public Participation: Anti-SLAPP Law and the Media Defendant” (2007) 41 Valparaiso University Law Review 1235. 40 41 In Price v Stossel 620 F 3d 992 (9th Cir 2010), this was described as follows: “The hallmark of a SLAPP suit is that it lacks merit, and that it is brought with the goals of obtaining an economic advantage over a citizen party by increasing the cost of litigation to the point that the citizen party's case will be weakened or abandoned. The anti-SLAPP statute attempts to counteract the chilling effect of strategic suits by providing that such suits should be dismissed under a special motion to strike.” 20