Former Opposition leader Simon Busuttil’s right to defend his personal reputation has been vindicated by way of three judgments confirming €5,000 in damages won in three libel suits filed against the Labour Party media.
A total of five suits had originally been instituted against it-Torċa, l-Orizzont as well as the PL TV station over a series of publications alleging that Dr Busuttil had attempted to obtain “damning evidence” from the Gaffarena family to use against former PN Minister John Dalli.
The allegations said Dr Busuttil had met Joseph and his son Marco Gaffarena before the 2013 general election at the PN headquarters and demanded Daewoo papers in return for the granting of a petrol station permit, which the Gaffarena family had long been struggling to obtain.
The story first made its appearance on it-Torċa on August 2, 2015 with later related articles published on l-Orizzont and PL One News and One TV, alleging that Dr Busuttil, then PN Vice President, had allegedly attempted to bribe them in a bid to get at Mr Dalli.
Josef Caruana, then editor of l-Orizzont, had allegedly based his story on information supplied by an anonymous source which was subsequently confirmed by Joseph Gaffarena when contacted by the paper.
The said meeting had allegedly been set up by former PN Minister Joseph Cassar who, when testifying in the course of the ensuing libel proceedings, had totally contradicted the version supplied by the Gaffarenas, his testimony being defined as “consistent” by the Magistrates’ Court.
Following the five judgments, awarding a total of €7,000 in libel damages in favour of Dr Busuttil, three of those were appealed by Mr Josef Caruana, as former editor of l-Orizzont.
When handing down judgment, the court of appeal, presided over by Mr Justice Anthony Ellul, concluded that Joseph Gaffarena’s version, fed to the PL media, had been nothing but “a complete setup” which l-Orizzont and it-Torċa had taken up as the “absolute truth,” without bothering to undertake any serious investigation to confirm the truth behind the allegations.
“It was evident that there had been nothing except for a brief phone call by [Mr Caruana] to Gaffarena,” the court observed, adding that the former journalist and editor could not shy away from responsibility for the articles penned.
No evidence had been put forward to prove that the PL media had any some way attempted to contact Dr Cassar to confirm the allegations before publishing the story, the court said.
Nor was there evidence of any written questions sent by the newspaper to Dr Busuttil before the story went public, the court went on, declaring that it had no doubt that the articles at issue had intended to convey a clear message, namely that Dr Busuttil had met Mr Gaffarena, had requested documents needed as “damning evidence” against Mr Dalli and this in exchange for the petrol station permit.
Such a message, directly targeting the then Opposition Leader and thus a “very high profile political figure” were “in the public interest” and had been evidently taken up by a wide readership base.
Yet on the basis of all evidence put forward, the court found no reasons to depart from the conclusions reached by the Magistrates’ Court, declaring Joseph Gaffarena’s version as lacking in credibility and remarking upon his “negative and arrogant” stance at the witness stand, which defeated his own version of events.
“I’ll die for [Labour],” the witness had declared, casting doubt upon the credibility of his story and even admitting under cross-examination that he had been “angry” when allegedly meeting Dr Busuttil.
In fact, it was evident that Mr Gaffarena harboured a “grudge” against Dr Busuttil who, at the time, had been directing harsh criticism against the PL, regularly mentioning the Gaffarena family over their Qormi petrol station permit and their involvement in the Old Mint Street property saga, the court observed.
The Gaffarena story had been pounced upon by the Labour Party media to strike back at Dr Busuttil, without however bothering to undertake any “serious fact checking exercise” and instead totally endorsing the Gaffarenas’ version.
A person like Mr Caruana, with great experience in journalism, “ought to have proceeded with much greater caution,” the court observed, noting that the journalist and editor had failed to adopt “a professional and diligent approach” to check out the truth of the source.
A phone call merely lasting minutes could never replace “professional and diligent research,” the court said, pointing out that the journalist ought to have smelt a rat “from the outset,” but had even failed to bother to confirm the story with Joseph Gaffarena’s own son, Marco, who had allegedly accompanied his father to the PN Headquarters.
The court dismissed the three appeals, confirming the €5,000 damages award in favour of Dr Busuttil, noting that “a good reputation was essential in political life as well as for one’s own personal dignity,” concluding that libel proceedings were intended to vindicate a person wrongly defamed and also to serve as deterrent against future defamatory declarations.
Lawyer Peter Fenech was counsel to Dr Busuttil.