Public opinion, certainly a large chunk of it, is formed through media reports. Opinion writers also form part of that public. The former do not all sit in court, attend parliament, watch every television show and talk to everybody every day, although they do talk to a lot of people, read as many reports in the media as possible and have a much more attuned feel of the public pulse than most in the law courts.

A couple of weeks ago I referred to a case regarding violence against women after sentencing - a topic which is receiving much attention in the EU, and one on which I have read widely, including books on gender and the law.

Following that short item "a clear message" was transmitted through court reporters to Sunday columnists, "who have no idea of how the judiciary works and are obstructing the course of justice".

Are we to understand that it is only lawyers familiar with the courts who should be allowed to proffer any opinion on what goes on in the law courts?

I thought we lived in a democracy. And what exactly was the "clear message" telling us? To shut up?

This is not the first time that I have upset people within the law courts and elsewhere, and it is not the first time attempts to gag me were made. The press would not be doing its job if it did not get this kind of reaction.

A docile press is a press that does not challenge and push for change, and I have no wish to be part of such a set-up. When I first came back to Malta I challenged the fact that a very small number of women were on jury lists and none of them ever got on the juries.

This meant that men being accused of violence against women were being tried by all-male juries and a male judge. I had got a similar reaction then and other times when I challenged either the courts or the judiciary.

But within a year the list of jurors included nearly as many women as men and some were even making it to sit on the jury. We still have such cases heard by all-male juries and of course we still do not have even one female judge. But that is another story.

Those of us who comment on the goings-on in the law courts will continue to do so. The law courts are not above the law.

It was made clear to the journalists reporting daily in the courtroom that they were not being criticised. "It was the people who call themselves artikolisti" and who are writing "inane (fil-vojt) comments, which are ifixklu l-gustizzja" (obstructing the course of justice)," In-Nazzjon reported.

In my view, the most important comment I had made was: "It does concern me that some people still fail to see that women are not possessions. They are not something you destroy if you cannot have them."

Who would find that comment inane? My few other comments on the case were based on newspaper reports and I could not but wonder how these reports were above reproach, yet comments made after sentencing were not.

Here are some examples. I shall only be reproducing text and headlines as that is what is relevant to prove my point.

On the opening day of the trial we read the following headlines: "Man threw girlfriend off balcony for two-timing him, court hears" in one paper; and, in another: "He threw her off the balcony and told her he loved her".

"The victim was pregnant with the accused's child", and further down on the same page - and this cannot be translated well, so here it is in Maltese: "Illum naghmel wahda minn tieghi...noqtolha" (today I shall do something crazy...I'll kill her).

In yet another paper "Love allegedly drives man to attemped murder."

Then reading the reports one read: "A young man who threw his girlfriend off a third-floor balcony in Gozo after he could not tolerate her two-timing him before his very eyes... she landed on her back and when he realised she was still alive, he said "bad luck to me", according to the police.

"The witness said the accused told them (the police) that moments before he threw her over the balcony he wanted to make love to her but she refused." In another report: "The accused said he intended to kill his girlfriend when he pushed her off the balcony... When he saw she was still alive he went down and tried to strangle her. When he did not succeed he told her to cover for him with the police," the prosecution said.

Only one of the Maltese papers told us that one of the defence lawyers challenged the police on how they got their statement, implying intimidation. Most of the media concentrated on the prosecution.

On the next day the headlines ran as follows: "He put my daughter in a wheelchair for life... yet he is not a bad man"; "Woman recounts how she was thrown off balcony"; the reports all carried scant if any accounts of the defence. Whether that was because the defence did not say much I cannot tell.

What was reported was that the accused refused to testify. That the defence said: "It does not make sense that a person would try to kill another person he claims to love", and went on to claim that "Mr Zarb did not intend to kill Ms Borg by throwing her off the balcony".

If I were a judge I would have been more concerned about the pre-trial media bias than comment after sentencing.

Yesterday another heading informed us that a man was "Cleared of wife's attempted murder". The wife, according to her lawyer, was not seeking revenge, and she had been paid Lm21,000 in damages by her husband. She also pleaded for clemency because the husband's custody would further traumatise their nine-year-old son.

The jury found that he shot his wife in a moment of passion.

In view of the circumstances the judge jailed Fenech for three years including the time spent in custody (just over two weeks) and ordered that his shotgun be confiscated.

The judge's comments were only reported in one paper, with one newspaper even telling us that he gave a detailed explanation of his reasons without giving us one single detail, which is a shame because what he said was very important.

He said that despite the points which mitigated the sentence such incidents cannot be tolerated and "no matter what state the relationship is in, shooting is not the answer". And those are the words which should have made headlines and been given prominence.

We still see too many cases where men try to kill or seriously injure their women in the name of "passion" if they try to leave the relationship.

We need to relay the message that society will not tolerate violence against women and mean it.

Crossing over and child safety

Have you ever tried crossing over from City Gate to the Floriana car park? I do it quite often and, believe me, it is scary. The bus drivers do not all look where they are going and they go too fast. Some of them even accelerate towards pedestrians instead of slowing down.

After having yet another moan recently, someone informed me that pedestrian crossings had been installed at the bus terminus, so before I went away last week I decided to look for them and use them. I usually cross on the left side of the Gate towards the fountain, and I knew there were no crossings there.

But I did find two crossings on the right towards the fountain. But having got to the fountain I was stranded. There are no pedestrian crossings to get you to other side.

The other day a car sped past me at the roundabout at Castille Square. A small child was standing in the passenger seat with no belt or any other restraint and the window was wide open. I cannot get the picture out of my mind.

Are wardens doing anything about this? It is much more dangerous than a driver not having his seat belt on.