Tomorrow, Monday, the Constitutional Court presided over by Judge Toni Abela will deliver a decision on a constitutional case I brought against the State for attempting to criminalise and prohibit the publication of Yorgen Fenech’s chats. The decision will either mark a historic victory for the right to publish or set the right to a free press back by more than two hundred years.
In 1839, the British Colonial Government issued the Free Press Ordinance (Ordinance No. IV), granting the right to a free press. It was one of the most important and historic steps in the development of Maltese democracy: it led to a boom in printing material, newspapers and books and turned Malta into a vibrant hotchpotch of local, Italian and other foreign intellectuals. Since then, Malta had a vibrant and free press which regularly challenged the limits and oppressive institutions of society, namely the Church.
Gradually, and throughout history, publication became the most important vehicle for dissent. In a country where only a very small minority knew how to read and write, publication was a tool for the educated and the literal elite, but its effects resonated way beyond the literary circles. Manwel Dimech’s publications and his newspaper Il-Bandiera tal-Maltin were more widely known than his restricted number of followers. When Manwel Dimech was attacked by a mob of children in Qormi, the children who attacked him didn’t know how to read and write but they were told that Manwel Dimech was dangerous for his thoughts which he propagated through his publications.
Publication caused scandal and commotion. The Church and its clerics were regularly furious with critical writings that dared to challenge their intellectual monopoly. Eventually, many politicians and Governors grew concerned about this freedom. A libel law which was introduced to protect the interests of the Church was not fulfilling its goal. In 1932 the Nationalist government introduced further restrictive measures as they introduced the law against the vilification of religion: eventually this law was removed under Joseph Muscat’s administration.
Political elites in Malta have consistently viewed the right to publish as potentially dangerous and believe it should be restricted to prevent societal disruption caused by publications. During the past few years under consecutive Labour administrations, restrictive laws on speech and publication were successfully dismantled but today, those who are in power still have trouble with the unfettered right to publish. Others have more nefarious reasons for opposing the right to publish: such as Yorgen Fenech, who claims that his human rights are being violated because, at The Maltese Herald, we have made publicly available a series of conversations between him and prominent individuals in society. In these conversations, he conspires against his critics, namely journalists and politicians, and seeks to win the favour of political figures to advance his own interests and power.
Yorgen Fenech is being accused in Court of commissioning the murder of the journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia. It’s not I that accuse him of this: it’s actually his middle-man, Melvin Theuma, who is accusing him in Court under oath. I have nothing to do with the case other than that as a citizen, a publisher and a journalist, I feel definitely safer in society if men who kill journalists are behind bars.
The State cannot place the burden of responsibility for Yorgen Fenech’s court case on my right to publish. Nor can Yorgen Fenech invoke any special privileges and walk free from his alleged crimes simply because a publisher has released a series of highly incriminating chats involving high-level figures: chats that are clearly in the national interest. It’s in the national interest to know that a politician was in bed with a major businessman involved in corrupt business with the government. It’s in the national interest to know that a major businessman was funding politicians and editors to attack critics who held him and the government to account. It is in the national interest to know that an editor and an owner of a major newspaper was in the pocket of someone accused of killing a journalist.
Yorgen Fenech is no ordinary person. At one point in time, he held overwhelming and undiluted power and influence over the Maltese government and the Maltese press. The public has the right to know who he is and what he did as he walks freely in Valletta while facing some of the worst criminal charges in Maltese history.
Nothing will change if he is found to be innocent: the conversations are a damning testament and evidence of the power he yielded. Yorgen Fenech is not a private person: he was at one point in time one of the most powerful men in Malta and wielded this power and influence to the great detriment of society – as a journalist, and a historian I have a legitimate right to make, write and publish this judgement.
Yorgen Fenech feels some sort of special privilege as he constantly sends me letters about his chats. It is not my pleasure to go against a Court’s decree. I believe that the Courts in Malta are the last major institutional bastion of our democracy and human rights. Even more still important, I believe that the right to publish is the most fundamental pillar of our democracy and our culture. Complying with Magistrate Edwina Grima’s Court Order to remove Yorgen Fenech’s chats from The Maltese Herald would constitute a grave capitulation of the fundamental right to publish: a capitulation I am not ready to effect, today, tomorrow, or ever in the future.
It is not my pleasure to challenge a Maltese Court and I uphold still my great respect to the Judiciary and its members. However, after having unwittingly built my identity on many years of publishing, I can not turn around right now at this age and give up this right so easily.
The publishing will continue.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply