At least 945 lawsuits against the media and journalists are currently active in Croatia, according to the results of a survey that the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) has been conducting for the fifth year. This year, 30 media outlets responded to HND’s inquiry about the number of lawsuits, and court cases are pending against 26 of them.

Out of a total of 945 lawsuits, 910 refer to lawsuits for compensation for damage due to the violation of honor and reputation, which are conducted against publishers, their editors, and journalists due to published texts and contributions.

When it comes to criminal proceedings, 9 media reported a total of 35 such proceedings. In addition to natural persons unknown to the general public, prosecutors are most often persons from public and political life, including politicians holding power, then legal persons, and judges.

As according to the results of last year’s surveys, Hanza Media (publisher of Jutarnji list, Globus, Slobodna Dalmacija…) has the most lawsuits among publishers – 421 civil proceedings and 11 criminal ones.

Styria is second in terms of the number of lawsuits, which has 190 civil cases and 6 criminal cases for Večernji list and 24sata alone. The longest court case has been going on for 33 years and is against the Večernji list.

In total, more than 5.4 million euros are claimed in lawsuits covered by HND’s research from 22 media. This figure is only apparently smaller compared to last year’s research, but Hanza media did not submit data on compensation claims to HND this year. Since almost half of the 945 lawsuits relate only to that publisher, and according to last year’s HND survey, Hanza Media had an average of 12,608 euros per lawsuit, it can be assumed that the total amount of all compensation claims in this number of lawsuits is twice as high.

That the goal of a large number of lawsuits is to intimidate the media and encourage censorship and self-censorship among journalists, is shown by the very amounts of initial lawsuits in civil proceedings, which are often much higher than those legally awarded. However, not all of these lawsuits are SLAPP (Strategic lawsuit against public participation) and it is not known how many of these lawsuits could be. The Ministry of Justice and Administration, by reviewing the cases against journalists from 2021 and 2022, and based on the criteria of the European Commission Recommendation 2022/758, determined that 68 civil and 11 criminal cases could be related to SLAPP lawsuits.

“The number of at least 945 lawsuits against journalists and the media in Croatia shows a high level of pressure on the journalism profession, which is targeted by politicians, various economic powers, and public institutions. About how problematic Croatia is when it comes to lawsuits, shows the fact that for the last two years, the title of the biggest European addicts of lawsuits against journalists has been taken by Croatian laureates,” said Hrvoje Zovko, president of the Croatian Journalists Association.

According to the data of the Ministry of Justice and Administration, last year, 245 new lawsuits for damages were initiated against journalists, 395 of them were resolved, while 710 lawsuits had not yet been resolved by December 31, 2022. The total number of active criminal cases in which the defendants are journalists in all courts in Croatia at the end of 2022 was 101. An overview of the outcome of proceedings for 2021 and 2022 shows that in criminal proceedings against journalists, one lawsuit was dismissed, a total of 14 decisions dismissing the private lawsuit and 44 decisions on the suspension of the proceedings, and one case was time-barred. Two negative verdicts and 17 acquittals were handed down. One case was transferred to another court, while for two cases a decision was made on lack of jurisdiction and transfer to the competent court. In only seven cases was a guilty verdict against journalists, from which, as in previous years, it can be concluded that a very small number of journalists were convicted of the crime they were charged with.

According to last year’s HND survey, to which 26 media responded, in February 2022, 951 court cases were active in Croatia with compensation claims totaling 10.3 million euros. The number of lawsuits does not change significantly from year to year. Among these lawsuits are SLAPPs, which aim to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with legal action. This is a serious and dangerous mechanism that threatens media freedom.

The Ministry of Culture and Media recently established a working group dealing with the problem of SLAPP, thereby confirming the problem that HND has been warning about for years. Despite this, there is still no official definition of SLAPP in Croatia, nor do the courts separate and classify such lawsuits. The task force has not yet developed any mechanism to prevent such lawsuits. When publishers were asked how the problem of SLAPP could be solved, most of them answered that the mechanism of early rejection of such lawsuits could be used, while a significant number of them answered that this could be achieved by limiting the amount of compensation claims, changes in the Criminal the law, by removing criminal liability for injury to honor and reputation, and by dissuasive penalties and compensation to the defendants.

Source: Monika Kutri / HND