A court yesterday dismissed three libel suits instituted against The Times and The Sunday Times, finding that the papers had acted in good faith and made fair comment.
The libel judgments were three of 11 handed down yesterday by Magistrate Francesco Depasquale.
The first case was instituted by MEP candidate Sharon Ellul Bonici over an article entitled Labour MEP Raises Eyebrows in Brussels, penned by journalist Ivan Camilleri and published on February 7, 2009. Ray Bugeja was the newspaper’s editor.
Ms Ellul Bonici held that, contrary to what the article had alleged, the Party of European Socialists did not express any objections to the Labour Party in Malta over her candidature for the European Parliament. The PES was actually enthusiastic about her candidature, which had not been criticised by members of the Labour Party either.
She also felt offended at the paper’s description of her as a “self-confessed Euro-sceptic” when she said she was a Euro-realist.
Mr Camilleri said he had sent questions to the PES group to verify what his sources had told him. The representative of the group declined to comment.
He also sent questions to the spokesman of the Euro-sceptic group in the Parliament and confirmed that Ms Ellul Bonici was employed as a consultant with them. Her own replies to his questions were included in the story.
The magistrate found the article to be correct and written in good faith.
Another case was instituted by architect Paul Buhagiar against journalist Caroline Muscat and The Sunday Times editor Steve Mallia for an article entitled Wied il-Għasel Development Permit Unethical.
The article stated that Mr Buhagiar was involved in the Malta Environment and Planning Authority for a number of years and a project he was involved in was going to affect a protected area.
The court ruled that the article constituted fair comment.
The third libel case was instituted by Leo and Joseph Camilleri, Rita Mifsud, Carmel Spiteri and St Peter Developments Ltd against Alan Deidun and Mr Mallia over a picture and caption written by Dr Deidun in The Sunday Times published on October 8, 2009.
It resulted that Mr Deidun was reproducing a press release written and produced by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.
In another case, Labour MP Helena Dalli complained about a comment made by Joseph Zammit in timesofmalta.com’s comment board, in which he claimed someone else had written an article that appeared under her name.
But Magistrate Depasquale ruled the comment could not be considered defamatory.