Attorney General appeals against Realtà acquittal

The appeal was filed literally within minutes of the expiry of the deadline established by law: 15 days from notification of the sentence

Vella Gera and Camilleri were acquitted on Monday 14 March by Magistrate Audrey Demicoli, who noted in her judgment that the law did not provide clear definitions of ‘pornography’ and ‘obscenity’, and that the prosecution had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Article 208 of the Criminal Code had been breached.

She also observed that the defendants were exercising their fundamental right to freedom of expression.

The court also concluded that public morality was something that changed over time. It added that what offended public morals 20 or 30 years ago did not necessarily do so today.

Furthermore, the court added, the publication was available only to University and Junior College students, which it said were mature students who already had free access to a variety of media including books, newspapers and the internet.

In this light, the court decided that it had not been shown how Ir-Realtà could have offended their morality.

The case goes back to 2009, when Camilleri and Vela Gera were separately charged with publishing and distributing pornographic and obscene material in the form of a short story titled ‘Li Tkisser Sewwi’, published in the left-wing student newspaper Ir-Realtà.

Reported to the police by the University Rector Juanito Camilleri – who also banned the paper from Campus grounds – the case sparked a raging debate on censorship and secularism.

Both Camilleri and the Vella Gera were accused of distributing obscene or pornographic material, and of undermining public morals or decency - under both the Criminal Code and the Press Act.

The story in question was first-person monologue narrated by a sex-driven Maltese man who objectified women and treated them in a sordid fashion. It also exposed his dilemma when being confronted with having feelings for one particular woman, and his inability to handle them.