I have been overwhelmed by the telephone calls and e-mails following the judgement given by the European Court of Human Rights that the Maltese court had interefered with my right to freedom of expression when deciding I had libelled the late Sir Paul Boffa, which I had not.

… in Malta any one can sue on behalf of a dead person, which is not the case in other liberal countries…- John A. Mizzi

This was a lengthy and studied judgement by all the judges in Chamber, except Mr Justice David Scicluna, who concurred with the opinions of his Maltese colleagues. The abridged version of the judgement carried in the press does not reflect the strength with which the European Court made its observations against the deliberations of the courts in Malta.

It has taken 17 years of hard slogging to establish the meaning of a simple sentence in English written as part of a letter to The Sunday Times in February 1994 in which I had written, en passant, of the “conglomeration of high- and low-rise constructions of grotesque proportions” that had risen in the area of Xemxija, St Paul’s Bay, where the authorities were considering establishing a yacht marina. I said this would bring further havoc in the northern part of the bay “because Dr Boffa (had) wanted to build there”. This was at a time when the authorities were encouraging the construction of homes following the acute shortage of private accommodation as a result of the widespread destruction wrought by the bombing.

The European Court commented: “The Court notes that the impugned statement read ‘Dr Boffa wanted to build there’ and that the domestic courts interpreted the statement as meaning that ‘the Prime Minister at the time wanted to build there for himself’...

“The Court considers that the evidence put forward by the applicant in the domestic proceedings, together with the fact that the area was eventually built on in the subsequent years, constituted a sufficient factual basis for the statement as intended by the applicant, which, in the Court’s view, did not amount to a serious allegation.”

It also noted: “Quite apart from the interpretation given to it by the domestic courts, the Court considers that the statement must be looked at in the light of the overall thrust of the letter. The Court has previously held that the criterion of responsible journalism should recognise the fact that it is the article as a whole that the journalist presents to the public... The Court notes that the impugned statement, whatever its meaning may be, was a mere historic sideline to an article that dealt with a totally different subject matter. It had no prominence in the writing, it was of little significance, was written in the calmest of tones and could hardly be considered as provocative or exaggerated in that specific context.”

When replying to the submissions by Attorney General Peter Grech, we told the Court in Strasbourg that “the Government of Malta has no qualms about making unjustified assertions against the applicant as a journalist, imputing ulterior motives and baseless accusations”.

I made it quite clear throughout all this time that I had been a personal friend of Sir Paul, that in no way did I say he wanted to build for himself, which the European Court confirmed. The air of superiority of the Maltese judges and the haughty manner in which they conducted or heard our case was highly objectional in our view, to say the least.

It is of interest to record that the president of the Chamber was the distinguished English lawyer, Sir Nicolas Bratza, the president of the European Court of Human Rights himself who represents the United Kingdom. (He is the son of the famous concert violinist Milan Bratza.)

In a statement appended to the judgement, he writes: “I share the view of the majority of the Chamber that the applicant’s rights under article 10 of the convention were violated in the present case and would add only a few words on what I regard as one of the important grounds for the Chamber’s finding of violation namely the fact that Sir Paul Boffa, who was held to have been defamed in the applicant’s letter, had died before the letter was written. “As someone originating from a jurisdiction in which a cause of action for defamation does not survive the death of the alleged wrongdoer or that of the defamed person himself, I admit to having difficulty with the idea that an action in defamation can lie at the instance of descendants of an individual years, and even decades, after the death of the person concerned.

“I accept, however, that in other jurisdictions, including Malta, such a cause of action exists and has not, as such, been questioned in the court’s case-law...

“As noted in the judgement, Sir Paul Boffa, who was found to have been defamed in the applicant’s letter, died more than three decades before the impunged statement was published. While I readily accept that he was a greatly respected figure in Malta, I consider that any damage that may have been caused to his reputation by the letter was in the circumstance outweighed by the freedom of expression of the applicant guaranteed by article 10 of the convention.”

This statement is of considerable importance as in Malta any one can sue on behalf of a dead person, which is not the case in other liberal countries, for obvious reasons. We took issue on this but were brushed aside. I would like to pay tribute to my lawyer, Tonio Azzopardi, for his tenacity and his efforts to sustain my reputation.