“And I received an extremely polite but threatening call saying, 'if this comes out in the public domain, we are going to take legal action and it will be very expensive'.”
“I think it's also very important for wider society, making sure we act to protect freedom of expression and freedom of speech more generally.” While this legal action could essentially be guaranteed to fail, achieving a victory would be a long, expensive process that most media outlets or journalists just cannot afford.
“We must protect Scotland against becoming a forum of choice for some of the most nasty individuals in the world.” Mullin is confident the consultation will end in stronger anti-SLAPP laws but he also expects a fair amount of pushback from those who are “going to lose an awful lot of easy money”.
The minister will give evidence on SLAPPs at the Scottish Parliament’s Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee meeting on May 1.We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.