Jason Azzopardi fined for illegal filming in court, plans to appeal

Former Nationalist MP and lawyer Jason Azzopardi has been fined €1,000 after a court found him guilty of illegally filming Prime Minister Robert Abela and Justice Minister Jonathan Attard inside Valletta’s law courts.

The ruling was handed down by Magistrate Monica Vella on Friday.

The case revolves around a video clip shared by NET News, showing Abela and Attard conversing in the court corridors on 2 December.

Filming inside court premises is strictly prohibited unless authorised by the courts’ director-general or the chief justice.

The court services agency, upon seeking legal advice from the chief justice, lodged a criminal complaint about the video.

Azzopardi was subsequently charged with unauthorised filming and ordered to appear in court on 9 December.

During the first hearing, CCTV footage presented in court showed Azzopardi walking past the prime minister’s team after exiting Hall 20.

In February, prosecution lawyer Alfred Abela argued that Azzopardi had clearly filmed the footage in question, as NET TV’s video and CCTV recordings aligned perfectly.

After the verdict, Azzopardi took to Facebook to declare his intention to appeal, describing the ruling as an abuse of state institutions to silence critics.

“The use and abuse of state institutions by Robert Abela against his critics, including myself, will not stop me one bit from doing my work,” he wrote.

On the day of the incident, Prime Minister Robert Abela was in court as three judges ruled on an appeal filed by the Nationalist Party concerning the fraudulent concession deal privatising three state hospitals.

The court upheld that the state advocate retains the power to act independently of the government to recover misappropriated funds.