Election heckler reports David Agius MP to Data Protection Commissioner

The information surfaced in a libel case, when Agius presented a witness from the social security department, George Cremona, to testify that Said had been 'boarded out' of work due to depression.

The case goes back to 2008 when David Agius sued the GWU newspaper it-Torca for libel. The article, entitled “David Agius: Iva, hemm korruzjoni fil-PN”, was published on February 4, 2008. The article had reported that during a conversation in a restaurant with Joe Said, David Agius had allegedly admitted that there was corruption inside the Nationalist Party.

In March 2010, the Court of Magistrates, presided by Consuelo Scerri Herrera had declared the article was libellous in David Agius’s regard. However, it-Torca appealed the sentence. Last Friday on 25 June, the Court of Appeal overturned the first court’s decision, declaring the article had been of public interest. 

The Appeals Court said the first court should have not accepted a witness who divulged sensitive information relating to Said’s mental condition. “This Court can not not remark that this divulging of information in the processing act of sensitive personal data of witness Joe Said’s health, taken from a document of the Department of Social Services, goes against the right of privacy and confidentiality of the person protected by the Act about Protection and Privacy of Data (Chapter 440). This, even more, when the information was given without the explicit permission of the person whom in the procedure was not even part of it.”

Said was something of a media sensation in the 2008 election campaign, when he advertised himself as a former Nationalist activist calling out to Lawrence Gonzi to come clean on "the problem of corruption" in the country. He was then investigate by the police for allegedly blackmailing David Agius, over claims that the whip had not passed his university exams.