If the government continues to refuse to either eliminate the law regulating the so-called day of reflection or ensure it applies across the board, at the next general election all Malta’s newspapers should seriously consider openly acting in defiance of it to force a court case on the subject.
Along with others, this media organisation is prohibited for 48 hours from carrying any item that may influence voters when either an election or referendum takes place. Even though it is at times difficult to determine what falls into this category – an interview on the subject would be obvious, reporting that two foreign celebrities have suddenly announced plans to divorce is less so – our organisation has always observed the law.
This is not to say that the law makes much sense. While there is a justifiable argument for not trying to influence the impressionable by running things like opinion polls the day before, or of, a poll, banning all reportage is without doubt going too far.
The law has also had an undesirable consequence, robbing Malta of a written record of the final speeches by party leaders just before a general election – which can often be the most poignant and stirring.
However, if all that makes for persuasive evidence to do away with, or change, this blanket and antiquated law, then the onset of the internet and everything associated with it has made it incontrovertible.
While this organisation along with others was gagged, and PBS pulled a programme which dealt with the subject of domestic violence, because, the head of news said, it was one of the subjects discussed during the course of the divorce debate – what on earth was not? – the computer literate in our country continued to debate the pros and cons of introducing divorce through blogs and the social media like Facebook and Twitter.
This did not just make an ass of a law that is, in any case, outdated. But it also places organisations like ours at a distinct disadvantage.
To make matters worse, most of the foreign media covering the divorce referendum in Malta, like the BBC, ran their features during our reflection period. It should go without saying that these sites are regularly accessed by the Maltese.
Given the high rate of IT literacy in this country, and the effort successive governments have made to bring this about, it is astonishing that certain areas of legislation are lagging glaringly behind in this respect.
The social media revolution is not just happening. It has already happened. We saw the force of it throughout the Arab spring as ordinary people rattled or overthrew their governments, which had tried desperately to block access to the sites.
And Britain has spent several months trying to come to terms with the phenomenon, particularly in recent days when Twitter users named footballer Ryan Giggs after a court had banned the publication of his name under privacy laws.
England’s Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, said only days ago that “anybody can put anything on Twitter” and that “modern technology is totally out of control”.
He said society should consider ways to rein in Twitter and other internet sites, rather than leaving laws and individuals at their mercy. Yet one has to wonder, with all the legal and practical complications that arise, whether such a thing is possible.
The reality, for better or worse, is that it is probably not. And that is why our government should act now to resolve the anomalous situation the local media, and the considerable number of people who read or watch them, find themselves in.