“Poland: Anti-SLAPP draft law is a positive step but key improvements essential”, 1 July 2025

In January 2025, the Civil Law Codification Commission presented a draft law implementing the EU Directive 2024/1069 against SLAPPs – strategic lawsuits against public participation. They amended the draft in April. The Polish anti-SLAPP working group considers the draft bill a promising step toward better protection of journalists, activists, and others vulnerable to legal abuse for their public interest work…

While the draft contains many promising measures, we want to emphasise that the way these provisions are formulated may render key safeguards ineffective in practice. In our view, if the law is to genuinely protect those who expose abuses of power from SLAPPs, it is essential to amend the project and strengthen the protective mechanisms to ensure the Polish anti-SLAPP law works effectively in practice.

Main concerns:

• Overly restrictive criteria for applying early dismissal mechanisms...
• Reference to the ‘manifestly unfounded’ standard…
• Requirement of an exclusive purpose…
• No special rules regarding the burden of proof…

…Therefore, the Polish working group recommends the following changes:

• Clear and comprehensive criteria to identify SLAPPs…
• Realistic conditions for early dismissal…
• Procedural efficiency…
• Actual reversal of the burden of proof…
• Enabling compensation and redress to be sought within the SLAPP proceeding…
• Excluding the possibility of lawsuits by the State Treasury or local authorities in defamation cases…
• Combining civil law reforms with criminal law reform…
• Expanding the scope of Article 4 to include NGOs…