Libel and (don’t) let libel…

If ever you wanted to see a complete, fully representative cross-section of Maltese society in a microcosm… the place to go would be the law courts. 

I tend to pop in at least once every three months. Just to pay my respects to this hallowed institution of justice, of course. Nothing whatsoever to do with a criminal libel suit filed against me in 2007 by five prison warders and the prison director (which also means I could get arrested for failing to show up for a single hearing).

No, indeed. I go there purely to savour the unique thrill of watching the Maltese judicial machine in action. There’s nothing quite so exhilarating as a wait of three to four hours, twiddling your thumbs on a bench in the corner… just to be informed by the registrar that there was no need to show up that day, as the case had been (yet again) deferred.

Not to mention the colour and the spectacle. The last time I went there, I fancied I took a wrong turning and ended up at the annual Lawyer’s Fashion Parade by mistake. Once again, black was the ‘in’ colour that season… but it seems that visible G-strings are now back in vogue – men AND women, please note – and stiletto heels any shorter than 11 inches have evidently been banned.

Then there’s the sheer variety of social demographic segments you will find congregated there on any given day, all rubbing shoulders in the corridors. People you know, people you don’t, people you recognise from the papers, people you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley at night (including some of the magistrates …) 

And you even get to learn their names: they are shouted incessantly by ‘messengers’ who pop in and out of swinging doors like teachers doing the roll call at assembly. Having been sued for criminal libel, I am now fully conversant with the entire ‘who’s who’ of Malta’s criminal underworld. Just imagine how much more acquainted I would become, if I were fortunate enough to be convicted and imprisoned…

Make no mistake: going to court is educational. Add to this the vaguely Buddhist appeal of hours upon hours of meditation on a wooden bench, with an endless monotonous drone going on in the background – for which people now pay handsomely, at gyms and fitness centres across the island – and you could almost market a local court case as a tourist attraction in its own right.

What better way to experience the authentic life of everyday Malta, than to sue or get sued for criminal libel? We already have ‘medical tourism’, ‘religious tourism’, ‘agri-tourism’ and ‘money-laundering tourism’… why not become the first country in the world to also offer ‘judicial tourism’ as an added attraction?

I can see the tourist brochures already. “Feeling libelled or aggrieved by a newspaper article? Can’t afford the legal costs of suing that newspaper in your own country? Come to Malta – land of sun, sea and never-ending court cases – and experience the spiteful pleasure of suing your critics in the only EU jurisdiction in which libel is still a criminal offence…

“Yes, you heard right! Still a criminal – as opposed to civil – offence. There are no legal fees to be paid at all. In fact, you don’t even need a lawyer. All you do is file a report with the local police, who will prosecute the entire case on your behalf… all at the State’s expense! And if you book your criminal libel holiday early, we’ll even throw in a couple of assault and battery charges for free. So what are you waiting for? Call your local police station and file a criminal defamation report NOW!”

Yes, that’ll work wonders to cut back on a caseload that already dates back to the Neolithic age. (I kid you not: the other day Ugga Ugga was in court, suing the local witchdoctor for criminal malpractice. The case has been constantly deferred since 3,629BC…)

And of course, there is also very high likelihood that you will bump into any or all of Malta’s politicians sooner or later. For some obscure, unfathomable reason, a decision was taken (and never reversed) to have all libel suits heard by the same magistrate. As a consequence, Francesco Depasquale’s courtroom now serves as a magnet that inexorably draws in every single minister and MP at least six times a year… and, of course, every single newspaper editor and journalist on the island, every other day. 

Nine cases out of 10, it will be the politician suing, and the editor/journalist being sued.

At some point in the last 10 years, for instance, Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi would have had his day in court: after he sued Torca editor Felix Agius for libel in 2006 (a relatively recent case, by our law-courts’ standards). I single him out because the same Jason Azzopardi seems to have suddenly developed very vocal qualms about using ‘libel’ as a ‘political weapon’… but only, it seems, when the weapon is directed against himself.

Shock, horror. Jason Azzopardi has been sued for libel. He joins the ranks of thousands of ordinary citizens across the island, all of whom have at one time or another borne the full brunt of Malta’s outrageously archaic libel laws: laws which Azzopardi’s own government consistently refused to update to the 21st century, despite having had a full quarter of a century in which to think about it.

And of course, we are all expected to light a candle, join hands in prayer, and sing ‘We Shall Overcome’… 

OK, I’ll admit that Azzopardi’s case is indeed somewhat bizarre. The man doing the suing, on this occasion, happens to be former Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit: who will now be utilising the same Police Force he headed until recently to prosecute his own case in court. Now: I am fully aware that ‘justice is blind’, and all that. But to be blind to a conflict of interest of those proportions… that takes more than just optical impairment. That’s a case for a complete brain transplant…

Still, a criminal libel it remains: not unlike countless other cases currently before the law courts, many initiated by Azzopardi’s own colleagues (at least one by Azzopardi himself).

How is that a ‘threat to the principles of democracy’, exactly? And why only that case, and not any of another half a million libel suits … some of which were very clearly intended to stifle freedom of expression for political ends? 

Because, naturally, different rules apply to people like Jason Azzopardi. It’s even laid down in the Constitution: right there, in the small print at the bottom of the very last page: “Oh, and by the way: none of this document actually applies to any political party represented in the House of Parliament. It’s only intended for lesser mortals…”

So how dare a former Police Commissioner presume to resort to precisely the same tactics the PN has used for decades? And how dare he use this political weapon against a Nationalist MP… and not, for instance, against a newspaper editor, in which case everything would have been hunky dory?

You see, I don’t recall a similar outcry when former Police Commissioner John Rizzo sued this newspaper twice under a Nationalist administration… nor, for that matter, when the entire PN parliamentary group simultaneously sued MaltaToday over an editorial. But I can fully understand how the same political party would howl blue murder, when the same ugly strategy blows up in its face.

It’s not how the script’s meant to go, damn it. And they should know, for they wrote that script – including Malta’s libel laws – themselves, specifically for their own use as a weapon with which to silence the media.

And just like every other example of Maltese political hypocrisy in action, it works both ways. I know it’s become a bit ‘comme d’habitude’ to counterbalance all criticism of one party with equal criticism of the other… but you can’t really help it, can you? They really do all sing from exactly the same hymn book.

Take the prime minister’s response, for instance, when Simon Busuttil accused him of having ‘masterminded’ Zammit’s libel case (because, of course, it takes a ‘masterful mind’ to file a defamation suit… so masterful, that even Busuttil himself managed it no fewer than four times against one newspaper, Kullhadd, last August).  

This is what Muscat said: “I hope he [Busuttil] isn’t saying that private citizens have a right to sue other private citizens, but that politicians should be immune. I don’t believe in the concept of immunity, and indeed believe it is high time that we start debating the concept of parliamentary immunity…”

Got that, folks? He doesn’t believe in immunity. And just to clarify matters, this is the same Joseph Muscat whose immediate reaction to all press enquiries about the Panamagate scandal was to warn the press about the dangers of ‘criminal libel’. 

Strangely, Joseph Muscat had no issue with ‘immunity’ back then… when it was his government that was acting as if it were ‘immune’ to its own electoral commitment to transparency. As with Azzopardi’s cries of instant martyrdom: it’s only now… and only applicable to the other party, not his own.

But let’s not get lost in technicalities. The truly wonderful thing – apart from the fact Azzopardi will soon enjoy for himself the exhilarating thrill of a fun-ride through Malta’s most popular tourist attraction; lucky him! – is that both parties now seem to agree that Malta’s libel laws need an urgent overhaul. Simon Busuttil even feels that they ‘take the country back 36 years’… and indeed they do, because they haven’t actually been amended by any government in any of that time (except to make the penalties harsher, which happened under the PN).

So: remind me again… whose job is it to amend and update Malta’s legislation? Last I looked it was Parliament, and… no: just looked again, and nothing’s changed. 

Off you go then, the pair of you. And don’t come back till you’ve drafted a new libel law that actually fits in the context of a 21st century European jurisdiction…