ABSTRACT
This article examines strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) in Aotearoa New Zealand, focusing on how civil procedure can be used to suppress public-interest expression. Drawing on 218 reported judgments between 2014 and 2024, supplemented by official records, interviews, and pre-action correspondence, it applies a four-phase socio-legal framework to identify cases that exhibit SLAPP-type characteristics. The study finds four such cases in the reported record, but argues that their significance lies in what they reveal about forum selection, interlocutory practice, costs exposure, and pre-trial intimidation, rather than in their numerical prevalence. The article shows that New Zealand’s plaintiff-friendly defamation law, liberal jurisdictional rules, and limited early-disposal tools leave journalists, academics, and civil-society actors exposed to retaliatory litigation. It concludes by proposing reforms, including guardrails against libel tourism, strengthened source-protection tests, tighter thresholds and early review for interim injunctions, and fact-sensitive early-disposal mechanisms guided by a proportionality-based freedom of expression analysis.
Mark Hanna, SLAPPs in Aotearoa New Zealand, Journal of Media Law. Published online: 29 May 2026.
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