When I posted my last blog I was fuming from my ears. I felt aggravated and abused by our legal system and wanted to bite the head off the Magistrate who had presided the case that I had been summoned to testify in.

But now, a couple of weeks into the Daphne-Herrera-Musumeci saga, my complaints about the Law Courts' rudeness, arrogance, and lack of respect for the innocent citizen, sound so petty, that I feel silly to have brought them up at all.

Granted, blogging about my despicable experience in court made me feel a tad better, but it was Daphne's ‘Running Commentary' that served as the perfect pill to my heartburn and frustration. Clearly the imprudence, arrogance, and rudeness that I had been subjected to, were just the tip of the ice berg.

Whilst I skimmed the surface of what I found revolting behaviour, Daphne took the whole thing into depths previously unbeknown to us peasants. Daphne blew the cap off what seems to be one of the biggest cans of worms in the history of court indiscretions. I shall not comment about Daphne's choice of possibly libellous words. Clearly she wanted to get her point across as strongly as possible, and I believe she achieved that quicker and more effectively than she herself had ever hoped for.

Neither shall I go into the merits and accuracy of Daphne's claims, but there's no doubt in my head that if these things are happening, citizens have the right to know. Some are of the opinion that these things are private matters and should remain so, but the same argument did not hold water in the case of the ex-commissioner of police, who was compelled to resign for having had a clandestine affair. The reason was plain and simple - the commissioner of police is a public officer!

A Magistrate is also a public officer, as is a politician, and all the members of the Police Force. They have the power to influence and to affect our lives so drastically and permanently that their vested interests, of whatever nature, should be out in the open for everyone to see.

Even the law differentiates between public officers and other members of society, and provides for such situations accordingly.

Daphne is being charged with defamation ‘by means of writings' and it is only because she's referring to public officers that she's allowed to bring ‘evidence of the truth' in her defence.

The law states that ‘evidence of truth can be presented in court if the person aggrieved is a public officer or employee, and the fact attributed to him refers to the exercise of his functions, and the defendant, in the preliminary stage of the cause, assumes responsibility for the defamation and declares in his defence that he wishes to prove the truth of the fact attributed by him to the aggrieved party.'

In addition ‘...,if the truth of the fact be proved, the defendant shall be exempted from punishment, whenever the court is satisfied that the proof of the truth has been in the public interest, and the means used, having regard to the circumstances of time, place and person, do not in themselves constitute a defamation or any other offence independently of the proof of the truth of the fact attributed to the complainant.'

But ‘if the defendant fails in proof of such truth, the court may, if the defamation is proved, increase the punishment by one or two degrees.......'

As with all laws, the interpretation of the above can go either way, and if found guilty, Daphne could face a maximum punishment of one year in prison. As unlikely as it is that the maximum punishment is handed down, this might be what will push the powers that be to finally change the antiquated law of criminal libel once and for all.