Update 16:01 - PN and PBS trade blows
Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said he was disappointed by a magisterial error which saw Żurrieq Mayor Ignatius Farrugia sentenced to four days in jail yesterday.
Mr Farrugia spent two hours locked up after an appeals court erroneously sentenced him to effective prison time for harassing blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2013.
Ignatius Farrugia.
“I am very disappointed with what happened. It’s useless making improvements if we make these mistakes, they eat away at people’s confidence in the judicial system,” Dr Bonnici said, adding that remedial action had been taken immediately.
Mr Farrugia had been previously convicted of harassment, fined €2,400 and ordered to stay away from Ms Caruana Galizia for a year. He had appealed the judgment, with the guilty verdict being confirmed yesterday by Mr Justice Giovanni Grixti.
However, an editing error meant that Mr Farrugia's sentence was mistakenly converted to jail time. Upon noticing the error, Mr Justice Grixti immediately petitioned the President to pardon Mr Farrugia and release him.
The Attorney General agreed with the request and the Justice Minister advised the President to grant the pardon, which was issued immediately.
Dr Bonnici said the government had acted quickly on the matter, but denied media reports that this was unprecedented.
In fact, a man was held behind bars in error because the printed version of a judgment said his bail had been revoked, when it actually was not, last month.
PBS reporting a case of two weights, two measures - PN
In a statement, the PN accused the national broadcaster of inconsistent reporting, after it reported on comments Mr Farrugia made on Facebook following his day in court.
PBS' news report came mere days after its head of news Reno Bugeja had defended the station's decision to not report former Prime Minister Alfred Sant's calls for Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi to resign.
At the time, Mr Bugeja had defended the decision by saying that it was PBS' editorial policy to not report on opinions and comments made on Facebook.
The PN accused Mr Bugeja of being a government mouthpiece. "The only editorial line Reno Bugeja consistently follows is that dictated by Castille," the party said in a statement, adding that it will be taking the case up with the Broadcasting Authority.
PBS reacts
The national broadcaster was quick to defend itself, arguing that Mr Farrugia's comments were about himself. "We would have been inconsistent had we been selective about picking which controversial messages we published," the broadcaster said.