The legal representatives of Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt and former Opposition Leader Alfred Sant shall be meeting with the aim of finding a solution to a prima facie breach of privilege complaint currently being considered by the House Privileges Committee.

Dr Sant had raised the complaint when he denied claims made by Dr Gatt in Parliament that he had information about the MITTS hacking inquiry and had tried to spin the story to Malta Today to mislead investigations.

In its first meeting last month, the committee requested a ruling from Mr Speaker as to whether Dr Sant, as the complainant, should be allowed legal aid.

In his ruling, for which he requested the Attorney General's advice, Dr Galea ruled that a member against whom there existed a prima facie breach of privilege should be entitled to legal assistance under a number of conditions.

These included that the legal assistance should be given by just one person who had a warrant to practice as a lawyer.

If more than one member complained about substantially the same case, the members should agree between them on who to appoint to represent them.

Moreover, the complainants were expected to give answers themselves and not through their lawyer. Giving evidence yesterday, Dr Sant insisted that it was not true that he had spun the Malta Today story and intended to hinder police investigations, as the minister had claimed in Parliament on October 14.

The matter was objectionable so he had to resort to a breach of privilege complaint since he could not seek other legal remedies outside the House.

Leader of the House Tonio Borg said that in the Malta Today report, signed by Raphael Vassallo, Dr Sant had confirmed that the hacking had been going on for two years.

Dr Sant tabled a copy of all the e-mail correspondence that had taken place between him and Malta Today.

He said that that was the only correspondence that had taken place between him and the newspaper. Dr Sant said that his case was not, however, about what Malta Today had said but on the minister's claims.

Asked by Dr Gatt whether he had denied any of Malta Today's stories, Dr Sant said he did not according to a decision he took a year ago not to deny any allegations made about him in the press.

The sitting continued in camera to try to find solutions to the case, which has been adjourned to January 28. In the meantime, the legal representatives of both parties will meet to explore possible solutions.

At the beginning of the sitting Dr Borg objected to filming of part of the sitting by One TV.