The Libertarian Paradox: Freedom of Speech and SLAPPs in Milei’s Argentina
President Javier Milei rose to power promising a radical dismantling of state coercion and championing absolute individual liberty. Yet, his administration has unleashed a wave of judicial harassment
In recent years, and accelerated by the post-pandemic landscape, democratic societies have experienced what scholars define as an epistemic crisis—a breakdown not just in public trust, but in the collective mechanisms used to validate truth and authority. In Argentina, this crisis has taken a radical turn. For decades, traditional political debates fluctuated between a minimal, managerial state and a robust, interventionist one. The current administration, however, has introduced a narrative that attacks the very legitimacy of the State, branding it as a criminal organization.
This discourse constructs an all-encompassing enemy: the “caste” (la casta), a derogatory term Milei repeatedly uses to rail against an alleged class of politicians, union leaders, businessmen, and journalists who live a privileged life off the effort of ordinary, hard-working Argentines.
Under this framework, any critical inquiry or piece of investigative journalism is disqualified a priori as a functional defense of the ruling class’s corruption. Paradoxically, while the official rhetoric positions itself as strictly anti-statist, the executive branch has repeatedly turned to the punitive architecture of the State—specifically criminal defamation lawsuits—to censor and intimidate dissenting voices.
The Rise of Judicial Harassment: SLAPPs in the Highest Office
The most striking manifestation of this paradox is the frequent recourse to criminal lawsuits for slander (calumnias e injurias) initiated personally by President Milei against prominent journalists. Legal actions have targeted high-profile editorial figures such as Carlos Pagni (La Nación), investigative reporters such as Ari Lijalad (El Destape), and political commentators like Julia Mengolini (Futurock), whose case prompted CELE to present an Amicus Curiae position paper before the Federal Criminal Court of Cassation.
These actions align perfectly with the international definition of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). Far from seeking genuine legal redress, these lawsuits exploit the judicial machinery to inflict severe financial, emotional, and professional strain on journalists or other individuals willing to participate in the public conversation. The underlying objective is to produce a profound chilling effect across the entire media ecosystem, signaling that critical coverage of the executive carries prohibitive personal costs.
The president’s lawsuits targeted journalists who were pursuing investigative pieces or editorial analyses on matters of high public interest. These ranged from critical assessments of government policies to signaling alleged similarities between Milei’s party discourse and that of the Nazi party and inquiries into the ruling party’s inner and most intimate circle. One story labeled the relationship between the president and his sister as incestuous.
Milei found all these publications extremely offensive and a direct assault on his honor, so he chose to pursue criminal defamation. Fortunately, the Argentine judiciary, for the most part, has resisted this wave. Federal judges, applying robust constitutional doctrines, recently dismissed the criminal complaints against Pagni and Lijalad. The courts reaffirmed that editorial analysis, historical comparisons, and criticism of presidential decisions fall squarely under the protection of freedom of expression in a democratic society.
In some cases, the Judiciary ordered the president to pay the legal and procedural fees incurred in the case, highlighting the classic anatomy of a SLAPP strategy designed not to win on legal merits but to intimidate and exhaust independent voices. To counter Milei’s strategy in the Lijalad case, the press workers’ union of Buenos Aires (SiPreBa) re-published the exact same piece that had led to the criminal defamation lawsuit and opened it to signatures. The re-published piece achieved more than 600 signatures from other journalists.
Milei’s reaction to these setbacks has been, generally, to double down on his systematic discrediting of the press, including name-calling and insisting on his X account that “we don’t hate journalists enough” (“no odiamos lo suficiente a los periodistas”, or its acronym #NOLSALP, which has been embraced as a hashtag by his followers in a collective campaign to question the honorability of any journalist who dares to criticize the government). More recently, he has consistently signaled both in X posts and in his public appearances that “95% of journalists are criminals.”
International Legal Standards: Public Interest and Public Officials
The deployment of criminal law by a sitting president against journalists violates core international human rights standards, specifically Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights. Landmark precedents from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights—such as Kimel v. Argentina, Álvarez Ramos v. Venezuela, and Baraona Bray v. Chile—have established a clear legal consensus:
Enhanced Presumption of Protection: Expressions concerning public officials or matters of high public interest enjoy a reinforced status of protection due to their vital role in fostering an informed citizenry and public accountability.
High Threshold of Tolerance: Public figures, by virtue of voluntarily assuming roles of state power and high public exposure, must display a significantly higher threshold of tolerance toward harsh, piercing, or even deeply offensive criticism.
Incompatibility of Criminal Sanctions: The protection of a public official’s honor should be pursued exclusively through civil remedies, the right of reply, or public clarifications. Using the criminal justice system to punish political speech is inherently disproportionate and democratically corrosive. The mere initiation of criminal proceedings by top-tier public officials against journalists for matters of public interest constitutes an abusive restriction on free speech, regardless of the final judicial outcome.
A Systematic Campaign: The IACHR’s Diagnosis
These judicial actions do not occur in a vacuum; they are part of an explicit, state-sponsored “cultural battle.” During a recent urgent hearing granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR/CIDH) held in Miami, a broad coalition of human rights and media organizations—including Amnesty International, FOPEA, CELS, SiPreBA, and CELE—presented an alarming diagnosis of the accelerating deterioration of the civic space in Argentina.
The IACHR’s Office of the Special Rapporteurs on Freedom of Expression (RELE), led by Pedro Vaca, documented a sharp rise in institutional hostility. This systematic degradation manifests through multiple vectors:
Coordinated digital violence: Journalists, particularly women, face massive online harassment campaigns frequently orchestrated or amplified by official government accounts. For instance, journalist Julia Mengolini testified before the CIDH regarding unprecedented campaigns involving AI-generated explicit imagery, death threats, and public justification of violence by the executive.
Repression on the streets: Under controversial security measures like the “anti-picket protocol,” nearly 300 media workers have been injured by law enforcement while covering public demonstrations. Photojournalists have effectively become targets to prevent independent external monitoring of police actions.
Administrative barriers to journalism and hurdles to accessing information: The government has arbitrarily restricted press credentials for access to the presidential palace (Casa Rosada) on accusations of espionage, and for entering the Congress building to cover Milei’s speech on the occasion of the inauguration of the Congressional 2026 term. A Presidential decree repealed the Access to Public Information Law and abruptly shuttered or intervened in vital public media, such as the 80-year-old national news agency Télam, severing access to pluralistic information and historical archives across the country’s provinces.
Conclusion: Defending Institutional Counterweights
The Argentine case serves as a warning for the international community. It demonstrates how a fiercely anti-statist, pro-liberty rhetoric can coexist with—and act as a shield for—the systematic weaponization of state power against accountability and public debate. When the executive power shouts through systematic stigmatization and bad-faith litigation, independent institutions and international human rights frameworks must speak clearly to preserve the bedrock principles of democracy.
Matías González Mama is a Senior Researcher and Coordinator of the Latin America Regional Desk at Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression (CELE). He is also co-editor of the topic "Media and Big Tech Governance for the Public Sphere" for the journal "Frontiers in Communications.”
Nicolás Zara is a Researcher at the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression (CELE).