Jason Azzopardi was in Court yesterday, facing charges of having illegally filmed inside the Court’s corridor – the footage in questions shows the Prime Minister speaking to the Justice Minister and the footage was shown on Net TV. Apparently, an investigation was conducted to arraign the person who took the footage and Jason Azzopardi is being arraigned in Court with evidence collected by the Police that supposedly indicates it was him who took the footage.
That’s a very efficient job well-done by the Police on the Court’s orders. Jason Azzopardi is claiming that pressure from Justice Ministry prompted the Court’s administration to take swift action and that the Prime Minister encouraged this pressure. Jason Azzopardi was also arrested prior to taken to court, yet the punishment for his offense can go up to around €1,200. A rare feat by the Police to execute such swiftly compared to the long list of politicians that are yet to be arraigned in court over multiple corruption offenses not to mention the fact that the ex-premier himself, Joseph Muscat, was even spared arrest over the biggest case of fraud and money-laundering of public funds in local history.
Surely, if there is revenge here it’s by the Police Commissioner himself who has already publicly made his contempt to the suspect in question.
The authorities executed the law against a suspect very efficiently on a trivial and antiquated law that is actually restrictive on the right to freely disseminate information to the public. It is illegal to take any footage in the Courts, inside or outside of the Court rooms but the footage in question involves the Prime Minister speaking to his Justice Minister.
This is not about protecting the privacy of private individuals but merely to make a point on a trivial and irrational law. That this law is incidentally enforced on a well-know ex-politician who is actively campaigning against corruption, raises suspicions that this is just vengeance. In fact the Justice Minister found the time to attend the Court session and testify against the suspect.
This law doesn’t even make sense considering that court documents are actually public and court sessions are recorded to the letter, so it is illogical to prevent the recording of a court session if its proceedings are to be public anyway. That the law refrains someone from filming public figures in the corridors of the Courts is ridiculous.
Clearly, Prime Minister Robert Abela is happy about it all and so is the Justice Minister, so I would expect the Opposition to fight the issue in parliament by presenting amendments to the law.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply