Prime Minister Robert Abela has attended the Times of Malta 90 year Anniversary Conference and praised the newspaper’s contribution over the years, also describing as “a source of truth”. In his address the Prime Minister talked about the government’s press reforms reiterated that the government will go ahead with its proposed reforms.
Although the Prime Minister tried to sweeten his statements by saying that the government won’t be re-introducing criminal libel, the government will be introducing new restrictive measures against the press in the guise of privacy laws. These new laws will give the absolute right to privacy to every individual including politically exposed persons and politicians.
The Prime Minister is bragging that the government has introduced safeguards for the press in the constitution and more attention to the security of journalists – measures which are cosmetic to the industry. On balance, the government’s reforms favour those in politics. There has been little pushback against the government—particularly from the mainstream press—over these reforms, and the conference carried on while ignoring the elephant in the room.
The government still needs to implement the European Freedom Media Act which obliges the government to become transparent in its funding for the press.
The government has also applied new EU anti-SLAPP laws half-heartedly and foreign-instituted vexatious lawsuits are still possible under the law. The Nationalist Party proposed to improve the current defamation laws by proposing the concept of symmetry in civil defamation cases. The government has refused to add these proposals to its bills. The Maltese Herald strongly supports these proposals.
Courts in Malta are increasingly taking decisions against the press with basically anyone who files a defamation suit apparently being considered by default as a victim. The Courts seem to be following the government’s trend in being suspicious and hostile of the press.
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