The Cyrus Engerer case – that is, the events surrounding the two police investigations that involve him directly or indirectly – has several inherently controversial angles. Explaining the coincidences calls for speculation, however informed. How each of us decides what very likely took place will be guided by our sense of whom we trust more. Some people’s evaluations will be better than others’ but they will be, inevitably, subject to argument.
However, the same cannot be said about whether the case raises Mr Engerer’s right to privacy. He has been charged with e-mailing pornographic photos of a former boyfriend, Marvic Camilleri, to the latter’s employer and work colleagues. It is for the court to decide whether he is guilty or innocent. The issue I want to discuss is whether what he’s accused of can be described as “a private matter that has nothing to do with politics”.
It was in those very words that the Labour leader, Joseph Muscat, was reported as defining the matter for The Sunday Times. Is he right?
A principle is involved, the public-private boundary. Its importance transcends the present case because it is one of the organising principles of freedom and accountability. In a liberal society, the right to privacy is there to protect one’s individual autonomy. Irrespective of one’s private behaviour, it promises non-interference and non-intrusion, by society and the state, as long as – this is the crucial point – other people’s rights are not infringed. Violations of privacy and vilification are not covered by the right to privacy.
In the Engerer case, the only person whose privacy is involved is Mr Camilleri’s. It is being alleged that someone violated it and, moreover, vilified him. Should the court case be heard behind closed doors – as was apparently mooted by a police officer to Mr Engerer – it would be to defend Mr Camilleri’s right to privacy, not anyone else’s.
The right to privacy is a right to freedom but we are not free to commit crimes. If Mr Engerer is guilty, it makes no sense to describe his actions as a private matter.
A crime may occur in a private place for private reasons but the act itself is never private. Is the man who beats his wife black and blue correct to tell the neighbour to keep his nose out of it?
Mr Engerer is not a politician whose right to privacy is being violated by a prurient press. Nor is he someone who would be victimised by the Labour Party if – should he be found guilty by the court – the party in turn judged him unsuitable to represent it.
It is indisputable that he stands accused of something that cannot be reduced to the purely private realm. If that’s not obvious to everyone it’s because there is also no doubt that Mr Camilleri was punished over a deeply personal issue. Dr Muscat himself, according to The Sunday Times, tacked between referring to the case as private and as personal. Surely, the personal is private?
No, not necessarily. Personal matters often intersect with public issues and this case raises two of them. First, there is the alleged attempt to damage Mr Camilleri’s reputation. The entire point of e-mailing the photos, as is being alleged, was to make public his private life. In principle, there was no limit to how widely the photos might have been circulated.
That aim overlapped with another: sexual harassment. Anyone who subjects a colleague to sustained sexual taunting is rightly considered guilty of a serious offence. Some exchanges might lie right on the margins of acceptability but not in this case. The alleged act of circulating sex photos among Mr Camilleri’s work colleagues crossed the boundary by a mile.
In this case, there is a potential political nexus as well. If Mr Engerer is found guilty, how eloquently would he in future be able to speak up, as a politician, against sexual harassment of homosexual or transgender persons, particularly on the workplace? No one would be able to take him seriously on such issues. It would affect not only him personally but also the political party he’d be representing.
In no other liberal democracy would the criminal charges against Mr Engerer be construed as concerning a private matter that should be of no concern to voters or party bosses. It would be a great irony if, in Malta, the rhetoric of liberalism were to be used to permit a politician to escape public scrutiny for his actions. It would be beyond Berlusconismo, even beyond satire, if we invoked tolerance to redefine crimes as belonging to the purely private realm.
Everything hangs on whether Mr Engerer is guilty as charged. If he’s innocent, then he deserves all our sympathy. If he’s guilty, should Labour really turn a blind eye?
ranierfsadni@europe.com