The Broadcasting Authority has written to Smash Television calling for more vigilance over comments and telephone calls made during Emmy Bezzina’s programme Il-Parlament tal-Poplu.

The programme was probed by the authority after Dr Bezzina passed remarks – which appeared to many to have gone too far – after receiving insulting calls from viewers.

Dr Bezzina, a lawyer by profession, was called names by the callers who on one occasion criticised him for wearing a tie that did not match his shirt.

In one case, Dr Bezzina branded the viewer a “pea brain”, called him an “idiot” and then urged him to “jump off Dingli Cliffs with a noose attached to his neck”. One caller used vulgar language to which Dr Bezzina replied by comparing him to “an onion marinated in rat dirt”.

During another programme, a caller asked Dr Bezzina – an unsuccessful candidate for MEP – whether he would consider entering politics, before calling him a “pea brain”. Dr Bezzina replied by calling the man a “can of peas”.

The programme, which often deals with issues of democracy and the rule of law, promotes the right of people to speak up and be heard.

In his letter to Smash TV owner Joe Baldacchino, BA executive chairman Pierre Cassar said the station needed to adopt “increased vigilance” to monitor not only Dr Bezzina’s comments but also those of people calling in.

Mr Cassar said the BA believed in freedom of expression and that this right should be respected so long as there were no serious breaches of the law.

However, he said that both the programme and the TV station should do everything in their power to respect broadcasting standards.

Last week, former Labour minister Joe Grima wrote in to defend Dr Bezzina. Mr Grima said his “hilarious show” was “the best thing on TV since sliced bread”.

Dr Bezzina’s show, he said, was “an impromptu, off-the-cuff, irreverent and, in some ways, ground-breaking show which does more to entertain than it does to straighten the political bends”.