SPECIAL COLLECTION OF THE CASE LAW ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Conclusions This study shows that in the examined cases many courts have provided protection against SLAPPs despite lacking special anti-SLAPP legislation, albeit in different ways and with varied implications. Several courts recognised that SLAPPs pose a threat to freedom of expression and media freedom. Some courts explicitly refer to definitions of SLAPPs in other jurisdictions, correctly apply international freedom of expression standards, and even apply available procedural protection that exists in national law in SLAPP cases (e.g. the abuse of process provisions). However, all the cases reviewed in this study come from the case law collection of Columbia Global Freedom of Expression. It must be noted that most of these decisions come from high, supreme, or constitutional courts; as such most of them are actually examples of “positive” jurisprudence where courts set an important precedent on the matter, which is why they were included in the database. Also, most of these positive examples are recent, hence, it was not possible to establish how and to what extent will these decisions influence over subsequent judicial practices in the relevant jurisdictions, e.g., if lower courts will take the possibly precedential standard of the higher courts’ decisions into consideration in their later judgements. In any case, all the decisions here studied show that when actual protection against SLAPPs was provided, it came mostly at the level of the highest courts. Thus, it came after the defendants in SLAPPs invested financial and other resources (time, energy, and psychological) to get the cases dismissed, typically after years of litigation. This is exactly the purpose and dangers of SLAPPs —drawing journalists, media outlets, or activists into years of legal proceedings and creating significant financial jeopardy through legal costs. The cases reviewed for this paper, as well as the experiences documented in numerous reports on SLAPPs, show that legislative reform is needed to ensure that SLAPPs can be disposed of at a much earlier stage, establish a high threshold for public interest reporting; that defense costs are kept to a minimum, and that deterrents against the use of SLAPPs are created. Therefore, states should adopt comprehensive anti-SLAPP legislation on a domestic level. This should include, at minimum, the possibility to dismiss claims at the early stages of the proceeding and order payment of costs to defendants. In particular, this should include the payments of costs of attorneys and trial fees on behalf of the defendants. At the same time, the study shows that underlying domestic legislations, under which many SLAPP cases are brought, need to be reformed. States must ensure that all legislations restricting freedom of expression meet international freedom of expression standards. Since various criminal defamation, insult, and slander provisions are used against media outlets, journalists, and activists, their decriminalisation should be a priority. All criminal defamation laws – including insult, libel, or slander – should be abolished without delay, even if they are seldom or never applied. They should be replaced, where necessary, with appropriate civil defamation laws. 25