Untruths and libel (II)

In my last article I dealt with libel cases since 1992, most of which were decided cases. I discussed the success rate of each of the two main political parties at libel cases and how much their verbal inaccuracies or otherwise cost them, with a bracket on who sued whom. Facts spring out so naturally that no further comments are needed for the "average reader", mentioned so many times during libel cases.

Today I'll speak further about the merits of libel cases. These are always flashy and interesting and not easily forgotten.

It must a priori be noted that the Nationalist Party lost 10 cases out of 10 filed against it and the Labour Party lost 13 out of 17. This includes cases of which proceedings were initiated as early as 1992.

Among the cases against the PN were those in which the MLP was accused of receiving funds from illegal sources during the building of its headquarters. Anonymous callers had also been allowed to make allegations against Alfred Sant saying he crashed three times with his car after drinking two whole bottles of wine and half a bottle of whisky (but they didn't say he was abducted by aliens!). This case cost the PN Lm1,500 in damages.

The PN also compared Joe Brincat to a drug trafficker in 2004 and turned Dr Sant into a Hitler in a caricature which cost In-Nazzjon Lm700. It also accused former Labour Minister Freddie Micallef of getting funds from Bank of Valletta for his political campaign (for which Mr Micallef won Lm2,000 from the PN). Former PN leader Eddie Fenech Adami had accused Dr Sant, a former university lecturer, of not letting his son into the university when Dr Sant didn't even form part of the admission board. For this untruth Dr Sant was awarded Lm2,000 libel damages.

Labour MP Chris Cardona also got his share from the PN in a case where the PN couldn't prove not even on a balance of probabilities that Dr Cardona ever said he was pro-EU in public. This case meant a Lm1,500 Christmas present to the Labour MP!

The MLP too lost interesting cases. Joe Mifsud, in Il-Kaz ta' Ciro del Negro (The Ciro del Negro Case) had to pay damages of Lm800 to Sandra Sladden nèe Caruana because the court ruled she was mentioned in connection with mafia circles in the book. Both Minister Louis Galea and the late former Justice Minister Joseph Fenech filed libel proceedings in the Queiroz case. Super One had to pay Lm3,000 to John Dalli for allowing an anonymous caller to say that the former minister had received money in the Mid-Med Bank privatisation case.

Dr Galea filed libel proceedings following allegations that his delegations were involved in drug trafficking and Daphne Caruana Galizia was paid Lm1,000 as damages for being associated with Roberto Memmo.

A noteworthy case, however, is the one filed by Austin Sammut and Posts Ltd. The MLP alleged that Dr Sammut, as chairman of Posta Ltd, was involved in negotiations which led to the company losing Lm1 million. The MLP lost the case because it transpired that negotiations had been conducted without his knowledge!

It usually happens that leaders are leaders in everything and this does not exclude libel cases. Dr Fenech Adami filed one libel suit and lost one. This was against Dr Sant and was about Dr Fenech Adami's failure to declare donations in his income tax return. Dr Sant's accusations were deemed to be "fair comment" and Dr Fenech Adami had to pay all court expenses himself.

The 2003 referendum and election had cost Dr Fenech Adami Lm3,500 in libel damages vis-a-vis Dr Sant and Dr Cardona.

Dr Sant filed four cases since 1992 and won three of them. These were the Hitler caricature case (won); the case about Dr Fenech Adami's son failed admission to the university (won); The Malta Independent case (about comments on the Ali Rezaq case) and the case involving Hector Bruno and The Economist, which was also won by Dr Sant.

The man seems to be the local political St Sebastian, shot at by too many arrows but never actually being killed by them.

Worth mentioning is another ongoing and, therefore, undecided case concerning Dr Sant's arrival at the counting hall on EU referendum day.

Dr Sant also stands out as a man quite capable of watching his words. Two cases were filed against him personally.

The first was the Fenech Adami income tax case and the second about Richard Cachia Caruana's alleged involvement in Sterling Company Ltd. In both cases Dr Sant was found not to have been responsible for libel.

If Dr Sant was featured as reminding the public of Hitler, it was now Tony Zarb's turn to be portrayed as reminding us of Mussolini. Libel cases filed by the General Workers' Union are also interesting. Being the biggest body of workers and of leftist repute, the GWU has quite a difficult task in dealing with the media.

Apart from the Sea Malta case filed recently, a case which triggered much anger on the GWU's side and which gave rise to nothing less than four libel cases was that involving Cargo Handling Co. Ltd. The four cases were filed against Net TV, Radio 101, Maltarightnow.com and In-Nazzjon. These all reported the company as being in a state of liquidation.

Libel cases are becoming more and more popular.

As mentioned in the previous article over 63 cases were consulted for compiling these two contributions and in my conclusions I tried to be as accurate as possible although space restrictions do not allow one to go into too much detail.