Journalists call for adequate budget, human resources for media reform consultation process

Activists from Media Reform Initiative (MRI) noted with satisfaction the decision by Prime Minister Robert Abela to freeze the media protection legislation and open the consultation process but called for an adequate budget and human resources for the consultation process.

In a statement on Saturday, MRI said that following pressure from the Institute of Maltese Journalists, the Council of Europe, various international organisations and over 100 journalists, editors and activists in Malta, Abela conceded to stop the parliamentary debate on the proposed “seriously flawed” amendments to freedom of expression and the media.

After a meeting with IGM officials Matthew Xuereb and Kurt Sansone at Castille earlier in the week, the PM made a commitment to open the consultation process on the proposed bills.

“MRI would particularly like to thank the President and the Secretary of the IGM, the only members of the committee put together by government, who stated publicly that if there is no public consultation to address the serious defects in the draft document, they would tender their resignation from the committee.”

MRI said it is a pity that government did not publish a white paper or organise public consultation on this matter, and chose to “throw” the responsibility of the proceedings on the Committee.

It added that it is not possible for the committee to carry out a fruitful consultation process unless it was allocated an adequate budget together with the necessary human resources.  

“The drafts tabled by the government come nowhere near solving or alleviating the various legal problems faced by journalists. For this reason, too, public consultation needs to be very widespread. This should include consultation not only with Maltese individuals and organisations but also with international ones who are specialised on these matters,” MRI said.

It said that this was a one-time opportunity to enable the legal framework in Malta to reach international levels and suggested that experts were commissioned to assist in the consultation process.

Stop the questionnaire that would have left Daphne out 

MRI called on the members of the IGM that sit on the government-appointed committee to put a stop to a questionnaire, currently doing the rounds, among persons listed as journalists with the Department of Information.

“That government chooses who can be considered a journalist or not is completely unacceptable in a democracy.”

It said that the Council of Europe defined a journalist as ‘any natural or legal person who regularly or professionally engages in the collection and dissemination of information to the public via any means of mass communication.’

It emphasised that this definition of a journalist had been adopted by the Maltese Court and said that the committee would be betraying free journalism in Malta if these definitions were ignored. 

“The decision to send the questionnaire only to those on the DOI list is more condemnable on this fifth anniversary of the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. She who was recognised locally and internationally as an eminent journalist would not have received a copy,” MRI said.