Cyprus now has an anti-SLAPP law, and it takes effect in May 2026

A claim brought to silence somebody rather than to win has always been possible in Cyprus, and until now the answer to it was the ordinary answer to any weak claim: defend it, win, and recover part of your costs three years later. That was never much of an answer, because the point of such a claim is not the judgment. It is the cost, the time and the anxiety of being in it at all.

That changes on 7 May 2026, when the Protection of Persons who Engage in Public Participation from Manifestly Unfounded Claims or Abusive Court Proceedings Law of 2026, Law 24(I)/2026, comes into force under section 23. It was published in the Official Gazette on 20 March 2026 and transposes Directive (EU) 2024/1069. Its shape is worth knowing before it applies, because it works on the front end of a case rather than at judgment.

What the Law protects, and what it calls the problem

Section 3 states the purpose: procedural safeguards for natural and legal persons who engage in acts of public participation, against manifestly unfounded claims or abusive proceedings in civil matters.

Public participation is defined in section 2 broadly and deliberately. It is the making of any statement or the carrying out of any activity by a natural or legal person in the exercise of the right to freedom of expression and opinion, to information, to the freedom of the arts and sciences, or to freedom of assembly and association, together with any preparatory, supporting or assisting actions directly connected with them, concerning a matter of public interest.

A matter of public interest is then given five limbs, and they are wider than journalism:

• fundamental rights, public health, safety, the environment or the climate;
• the activities of a natural or legal person with a public profile in the private or the public sector;
• matters under consideration by a legislative, executive or judicial body, or in any other official procedure;
• allegations of corruption, fraud or any other criminal offence, or of administrative infringements concerning such matters;
• actions protecting the values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, including the protection of democratic processes from undue interference, in particular by combating disinformation.

A residents' association objecting to a development, an employee describing conditions at a regulated employer, a customer reviewing a company with a public profile: each of those can be public participation on a matter of public interest. The Law is not confined to publishers.

The four indications of abuse

Section 2 defines abusive proceedings as proceedings in which unfounded claims are brought whose main purpose is not the genuine exercise or protection of a right but the prevention, restriction or punishment of public participation, among other things by exploiting the imbalance of power between the parties. It then lists four indications of that purpose:

• a disproportionate, excessive or unreasonable subject matter of the claim or of part of it, including an excessive value put on the dispute;
• the filing of multiple claims on similar matters by the same claimant or persons connected with them;
• intimidating, harassing or threatening conduct by the claimant or its representatives, before or during the proceedings, or in similar or parallel cases;
• bad faith or delaying use of the procedure, including delay of the proceedings, fraudulent or abusive forum shopping, and bad faith discontinuance of the case at a later stage.

Read as a list of what a court will look at, it is also a list of what a defendant's file should record from the first letter onwards.

Where the Law bites, and where it does not

Section 4(1) applies the Law, notwithstanding any other law or regulation, to civil or commercial matters with cross-border implications heard in civil proceedings, and says expressly that this includes proceedings for interim orders and counterclaims, whatever the court.

Section 4(2) takes three things out: tax, customs and administrative disputes, and disputes concerning State liability for acts or omissions in the exercise of state authority; criminal matters; and arbitration. Section 4(3) preserves the Criminal Procedure Law. Section 4(4) makes clear that more favourable protections in other legislation survive, and section 4(5) that nothing here narrows any constitutional or statutory right or safeguard.

The cross-border requirement is the point most likely to be misread, because section 5(1) defines it negatively. A case is not treated as having cross-border implications only where all three of the following hold:

• both parties are domiciled in the Republic;
• the court with jurisdiction sits in the Republic; and
• all the elements relevant to the case are located in the Republic.

Domicile takes its meaning from Regulation (EU) 1215/2012. A foreign claimant, a foreign publication, a website read abroad, evidence held outside Cyprus: any one of those can be enough to take a case out of the purely domestic category and into the Law.

The three applications a defendant can make

Section 6 gives a defendant sued for engaging in public participation three applications, available at the commencement of the proceedings:

Security for costs, under section 10. The Court may, subject to the right of access to justice, order the claimant to deposit a sum with the Court as security for the costs the defendant is estimated to incur. A claimant who brought the case for its cost rather than its merits now faces the cost first.

Early dismissal, under section 11. The Court may, on application and after appropriate examination, dismiss claims against public participation as manifestly unfounded at as early a stage of the proceedings as possible, subject to the Civil Procedure Rules.

The Part IV remedies, dealt with below.

Section 7 allows the Court to give summary judgment on any of those applications, having regard to the circumstances of the case and to the right to an effective remedy and to an impartial tribunal.

Section 9 adds something no ordinary defence has. The defendant may apply to the Court to add parties, call witnesses, or otherwise bring in, as provided in the Civil Procedure Rules, representatives of associations, organisations, trade unions and other entities with a legitimate interest in defending or promoting the rights of persons who engage in public participation, to support the defendant or to provide information during the proceedings.

Who proves what

Section 12(1) states the ordinary rule with unusual clarity: the burden of proving that the claim is well founded lies on the claimant who brought it.

Section 12(2) is the operative one. Where the defendant applies for summary judgment dismissing the claim at an early stage under section 11, the claimant bears the burden of putting forward the material necessary for the Court to assess whether the claim is manifestly unfounded. A defendant does not have to build a case; a claimant has to show they have one, at the outset.

Section 13 provides that a decision dismissing a claim at an early stage is final and subject to appeal in accordance with the Civil Procedure Rules.

The provision that changes the arithmetic

The usual way a claim of this kind ends is that it is quietly discontinued once it has done its work. Section 8 closes that exit. During proceedings brought under the Law, any later amendment of the claim or the pleadings by the claimant, including withdrawal of the claim, does not affect the defendant's ability to seek the remedies in Part IV.

Those remedies are two. Under section 14(1) the Court may order a claimant who has brought abusive proceedings to pay the defendant's costs. Under section 14(3) those costs include the whole of the defendant's legal representation costs, unless they are found excessive, which is a departure from the ordinary Cyprus position where a successful party recovers a taxed proportion. Section 14(2) allows the Court to assess costs summarily or to direct detailed assessment by the Registrar, subject to the Court's approval.

Section 15 goes further: the Court may impose any other effective, proportionate and dissuasive measures, in particular the payment of damages by the claimant, where the defendant has included them in a counterclaim.

Claims brought abroad

Part V deals with the claimant who sues somewhere else. Section 16 requires the Court to refuse recognition or enforcement of a judgment given in a third country if it considers those proceedings manifestly unfounded or abusive.

Section 17(1) creates a claim of its own. Where a person who is not resident in an EU member state brings abusive proceedings against public participation in a third country against a natural or legal person domiciled in the Republic, that person may claim before the Court damages for the loss and the costs incurred before the third-country court. Under section 17(2) the Court may stay the exercise of its jurisdiction while the third-country proceedings are pending.

What it does not change

The Law is procedural. It does not alter what defamation is, what the defences are, or when a claim must be brought. Injurious falsehood remains section 25 of the Civil Wrongs Law, Cap. 148, with malice to be proved. The limitation period remains one year under section 6(4) of the Limitation of Actionable Rights Law, Law 66(I)/2012, which is the shortest in ordinary use and is the first date to check in any reputation file.

Two further final provisions matter in practice. Section 22 provides that proceedings within the scope of the Law that are pending or were filed before commencement continue and are completed before the court already seised, without prejudice to the Law's provisions. And section 20 and section 21 leave the detail to come: the Council of Ministers may make Regulations, and the Supreme Court may issue a Procedural Regulation, for the better application of the Law.

What to do about it now

If you have been threatened with proceedings for something you published, posted, filed or said about a matter of public interest, the file that decides a section 11 or section 14 application is the one you are building today: the correspondence, the demands, the valuation put on the claim, and any pattern of similar claims by the same person. If you are considering bringing a claim over something published about you, the same provisions are the reason to make sure the claim is one you can substantiate at the outset under section 12(2), rather than one you hope to develop.

Either way the date to diarise is 7 May 2026.

Questions we are asked

Sources

• Protection of Persons who Engage in Public Participation from Manifestly Unfounded Claims or Abusive Court Proceedings Law of 2026, 24(I)/2026, Official Gazette No. 5079, 20 March 2026
• Directive (EU) 2024/1069 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024
• Civil Wrongs Law, Cap. 148, consolidated text
• Limitation of Actionable Rights Law of 2012, 66(I)/2012, consolidated text

This article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

Klitos Platis

Advocate, Partner

Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia · Published 24 August 2026