Move to add free speech protections to UK anti-corruption bill
Free speech amendments have been tabled for inclusion in anti-corruption legislation due before parliament next week, after ministers promised to reform Britain’s legal system to prevent “intimidation lawsuits”.
The Labour MP Liam Byrne and the Conservative MP David Davis tabled two amendments to the economic crime bill, which will be put to a first vote on Monday.
In a joint statement on the amendments, they said: “We’re determined to build a cross-party coalition to ensure the reforms before parliament, designed to expunge from London the problem of dirty money, ensure that oligarchs of any nation can no longer use the English legal system against ordinary citizens, journalists and civil servants to silence free speech.”
The first amendment would require the government to institute an inquiry into so-called Slapp (strategic litigation against public participation) cases intended to intimidate journalists and campaigners.
The second would protect an individual disclosing otherwise confidential information from the offshore property register, if they could show the disclosure was in the public interest.
The main measure in the economic crime bills is the creation of a register of individuals owning UK property through offshore companies and other secrecy devices. The purpose of the register is to make it harder for criminal elements and corrupt foreign officials to launder money through London’s property sector.
During a parliamentary debate on Russian sanctions on Tuesday, MPs accused three solicitors, Geraldine Proudler of CMS, Nigel Tait of Carter-Ruck and John Kelly of Harbottle & Lewis, of deliberately filing oppressive legal actions against an investigative journalist in an attempt to intimidate her. Similar allegations
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