Cabinet mulls brave new defamation law

The Labour administration is mulling over new far-reaching reforms in the field of civil defamation, with a new package of laws that will allow injured parties to seek redress through mediation instead of court action.

The proposals have been prepared on the basis of research carried out by independent lawyers and newspaper editors, to offer a suitable alternative to the expensive and time-consuming defamation proceedings in the Maltese courts.

One of the major features of the proposed legal reforms will be the introduction of mandatory mediation for people who file a defamation complaint. Instead of proceeding straight into court to file a civil defamation lawsuit, parties can go straight into mediation to discuss suitable redress that can be delivered in a timelier fashion.

That would save newspapers – often the defendants in such cases – as well as plaintiffs, years at the law courts, and thousands spent on expensive legal fees and costly damages.

The mediation process however will not mean that parties cannot take the case to the civil court. If mediation fails, a plaintiff can still take recourse  to the civil courts.

The package of laws will most probably also suggest the prohibition of criminal libel.

Most recently, MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan and journalist Matthew Vella were acquitted of criminal libel in a report filed by former PBS head of news Natalino Fenech, claiming his right of reply was not published within the legal time-frames. For the past seven years, MaltaToday had contended that Fenech’s criminal libel suit was “simply vexatious”, since the former editor’s right of reply was published in full in MaltaToday’s Wednesday edition.

In 2013, with the election campaign in February of that year already dominated by libel suits and criminal defamation proceedings, Labour leader Joseph Muscat had stated that he was in agreement that criminal libel should be reformed. “Criminal libel is one of the reforms that needs to be discussed. We must see what type of legislation can help the media to do its work, but at the same time make sure that the media is aware of its responsibilities,” Muscat said.

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil has also joined the ranks of many in calling for the abolition of criminal libel in Malta. “A modern democracy cannot allow for the possibility of being thrown in jail when exercising their right to freedom of expression,” he recently declared.

Criminal libel is indeed an aberration in any modern democracy, as Magistrate Francesco Depasquale recently pointed out: even if never carried out, the threat of prison in itself constitutes a direct affront to freedom of expression. But there are other, less direct threats involved. 

By filing a criminal libel suit, one actually enlists the office of the prosecution (which, in Malta, falls under the Police Force) to conduct the case at its own expense. This raises the question of whether it is congruent for the State to foot the bill for a private litigation… a question that assumes greater relevance when one considers that libel – both criminal and civil – is very often resorted to as a means of silencing media critics.

From this perspective, criminal libel makes the State an accessory to the intimidation of the free press.