Quote of the week
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am your God – Leviticus 19:33-34.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit – Ephesians 2:19-22.
Christian Bible
On SLAPP suits
A common feature of SLAPP suits is that the primary aim of the litigation is not to enforce a legitimate right. The objective is to silence or fluster the opponent, tie them up with paperwork or bankrupt them with legal costs. Therefore, the hallmark of a SLAPP suit is that it often (but not necessarily always) lacks merit, and that it is brought with the goals of obtaining an economic or other advantage over a party by increasing the cost of litigation to the point that the party’s case will be weakened or abandoned. They are primarily legal proceedings that are intended to silence critics by burdening them with the cost of litigation in the hope that their criticism or opposition will be abandoned or weakened. In a typical SLAPP suit, the plaintiff does not necessarily expect to win its case, but will have accomplished its objective if the defendant yields to the intimidation, mounting legal costs or exhaustion and abandons its defence and also, importantly, its criticism of and opposition to the project or development. It appears from this initial analysis that both merit and motive play a role in the test for a SLAPP suit and the one may inform the other.
