Broadcaster Claudette Buttigieg (Pace) has filed a judicial protest against PBS after its editorial board decided that she could no longer present her programme Sellili once she had declared herself an election candidate.

Ms Buttigieg said that she declared herself as a PN candidate on September 17 and on the following day she received an e-mail from the PBS editorial board  where she was told that Deemedia.tv - the company which produces Sellili - had been notified that she could not present Sellili after October 1 because of her candidature.

Ms Buttigieg said the editorial board's decision was arbitrary and without basis. One could not understand how the simple declaration of a candidature  could in any way impact on the quality of the programme she presented, which programme had nothing to do with politics or current affairs.

Furthermore, broadcasting was her career and she was being denied her livelihood when a general election had not even been called.

Ms Buttigieg said that a judgement by the Court of Appeal on May 31, 2002 in the case John Bundy and Clyde Puli vs the Broadcasting Authority was very relevant to her case. The court had declared that the sole fact that somebody had declared his intention to contest a general election  was not sufficient basis for the Authority to stop them from exercising their profession as broadcasters.

The court had therefore declared that the Broadcasting Authority was ultra vires when it stopped Bundy and Puli from exercising their profession as broadcasters up to the election when they were not even candidates but had declared their intention to be candidates.

Ms Buttigieg called on PBS to revise its position.