A judge found that a former Cabinet minister’s and a newspaper editor’s right to freedom of expression was not violated when they were fined for libel.

Former Cabinet minister and Nationalist MP Michael Falzon and Saviour Balzan, editor of MaltaToday, had instituted a constitutional case against the Attorney General, the Director of Courts and Labour MP Michael Falzon.

The court, presided over by Mr Justice Joseph Azzopardi, heard that Mr Falzon had written an article entitled Policing One’s Enemies, which was published in MaltaToday in May 2007.

Dr Falzon then sued for libel damages arguing that the article was libellous in his regard as it insinuated that he had manipulated the Commissioner of Police into taking action about anonymous mail he had received. The Magistrates’ Court had found in favour of Dr Falzon and had condemned Mr Falzon and Mr Balzan to pay libel damages of €2,500 and €1,000 respectively.

The judgement was upheld by the Court of Appeal and Mr Falzon and Mr Balzan then filed a constitutional case claiming that their right to freedom of expression had been violated. Mr Justice Azzopardi pointed out that the facts of the case went back to 2007 on the eve of the general election after a speech Dr Falzon had made in Rabat.

He noted that the gist of the constitutional case appeared to be an attempt to have a revision of two previous court rulings. Mr Falzon and Mr Balzan felt that the Magistrates’ Court and the Court of Appeal had wrongly interpreted Mr Falzon’s article. But this did not of itself mean that the right of freedom of expression had been violated.

One could disagree with the conclusions reached by a court but that did not mean that a human right had been breached, Mr Justice Azzopardi concluded.