The European Court of Human Rights has disagreed with a decision made by five Maltese judges and a magistrate and found that an opinion writer’s human rights were violated when he was fined for one of his articles.

In July 2013, Michael Falzon, who served as a Cabinet minister between 1987 and 1996, claimed that his right of freedom of expression had been violated when he was fined for defamation.

The case dated to May 2007, when, speaking in public, the present Minister for the Family, Children’s Rights and Social Solidarity, Michael Falzon, then deputy leader of the Labour Party, said he had received an anonymous e-mail and threatening letters. Dr Falzon said he complained to the Commissioner of Police asking him to investigate.

A few days later, Mr Falzon wrote an article in a newspaper commenting, among other things, that one could see indications “that within Labour there are people who can influence and interfere in decisions taken by the police force. This is happening when they are still in Opposition. Asking what would happen in this area once they are in government is, therefore, a legitimate question.”

Dr Falzon sued him for libel, and in 2010, the Magistrates’ Court ordered him to pay €2,500 in damages to Dr Falzon.

Magistrate Silvio Meli (since promoted to judge) also ordered the newspaper editor to pay damages amounting to €1,000. The judgment was confirmed by Mr Justice Philip Sciberras (now retired) in the Court of Appeal that same year.

A year later, Mr Falzon took his case to the Constitutional Court, complaining that extensive protection given to a public figure served to silence free expression. But Mr Justice Joseph Azzopardi, presiding, disagreed and rejected his claims.

An appeal was filed but this, too, was dismissed. Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Noel Cuschieri ruled that a person could not hide behind an opinion or value judgement to impute untrue facts to someone else.

Holding a politician to account undoubtedly contributes to a debate of general interest for Maltese society

So Mr Falzon decided to seek redress at the European Court of Human Rights, where seven judges, including Maltese Chief Justice Emeritus Vincent De Gaetano, declared they were not convinced that Mr Falzon’s statements could be considered the sort of serious attack that could prejudice Dr Falzon’s personal enjoyment of his private life.

Mr Falzon being a regular opinion writer, the Court noted it had to examine the case “in the context of the essential role of a free press in ensuring the proper functioning of a democratic society”.

The ECtHR judges said the article did not refer to Dr Falzon’s private life as such but rather his behaviour as a politician.

“There is no doubt that the behaviour of a politician and the possible consequences, if any, on the public and third parties, are matters of public interest. Indeed, questioning the behaviour of a politician and holding the latter to account undoubtedly contributes to a debate of general interest for Maltese society as a whole,” they said.

The Strasbourg court found that comments made by Mr Falzon constituted a value judgement representing his subjective appraisal of Dr Falzon’s actions. It added that the opinion writer was providing reliable and precise information as required by the ethics of journalism.

“The [ECtHR] takes issue with the decisions of the domestic courts concerning unuttered statements and their decisions to consider certain statements as factual (which they claimed had not been proved) as opposed to value judgements…

“In the court’s view, by using a style which may have involved a certain degree of provocation, it is plausible that the applicant was raising awareness as to the possibility of any abuse being perpetrated by the deputy leader of the party in Opposition and that he was calling for action by the minister in charge…

“[I]n the court’s view, the questions posed by the applicant, which appearto have been the main reason of hiscondemnation by the domestic courts, were legitimate questions having a sufficient factual basis: [Dr Falzon’s] own speech. Nothing in the article suggests that the applicant was acting in bad faith,” it continued.

The judges concluded that the Maltese courts “did not appropriately perform a balancing exercise between the need to protect [Dr Falzon’s] reputation and the [European Convention of Human Rights] standard, which requires very strong reasons for justifying restrictions on debates on questions of public interest.

“The domestic courts’ decisions, very narrow in scope, reiterating what, in their view, was implied by the impugned statements and requiring proof thereof, and upholding the right to reputation without explaining why this outweighed the freedom of expression of the applicant, and without taking into consideration other factors relevant to this balancing exercise, cannot be considered to have fulfilled the obligation incumbent upon the courts to adduce ‘relevant and sufficient’ reasons that could justify the interference at issue,” they remarked.

The European court awarded Mr Falzon €2,500 in compensation and a further €4,000 in moral damages, in addition to €6,340 in expenses.