Libel judgment overturned on appeal

An appeal court yesterday overturned a judgment in which a football referee who sued in-Nazzjon over a 1996 article was awarded Lm300 damages by the Civil Court.

Alfred Micallef had filed a libel suit against (then) editor Joseph Zahra and sportswriter John Busuttil over the article headed "Se nniggizkom bl-akbar hlewwa: Fredu wehel Lm50" and published on October 28, 1996.

Micallef won the suit in first instance and was awarded Lm300 damages.

But Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano, Mr Justice Joseph D. Camilleri and Mr Justice Joseph A. Filletti in the Court of Appeal yesterday overturned the judgment and declared that the article was not libellous.

The appeal court noted that Micallef had claimed that the article contained a number of insinuations made by Busuttil, a member of the Malta Football Association council.

The Civil Court had found that the defendants had not proven the truth of the facts they had commented upon, and that therefore the defence of fair comment could not be successfully upheld.

But the Court of Appeal noted in its judgment that if defendants could prove that the facts in issue were substantially true and that the comment on such facts was reasonable in the circumstances, then no libel could be found to exist.

The court added that the article did not contain any defamatory insinuations about Micallef.

On the contrary, the implications of the article were in the sense that Micallef was an honest man and one of integrity.

The criticism contained in the article could be easily directed against any referee in any sporting activity.

The court concluded by finding that the article was not libellous, and that it constituted fair comment.