A court this morning found justice shadow minister Jason Azzopardi 'not guilty' in the defamation case filed by the police following a complaint by former police commissioner Peter Paul Zammit.
Dr Azzopardi welcomed the decision saying it was an important judgement for freedom of expression.
"It is important that the Courts are ready to stand up to the Labour Party's attempt to shut the Opposition's mouth," he said outside the Court. (listen to Dr Azzopardi's comments in video above)
The case stems from comments made by Dr Azzopardi when he was shadow minister for home affairs 10 months ago about a file having been leaked from the police commissioner's office to Malta Today.
The press conference had centred on a report by the Data Protection Commissioner on the data leak. The leak involved information on police inspector Elton Taliana, details of which had been published in Malta Today.
Dr Azzopardi had later given a news conference based on an article that appeared in Times of Malta in which he said Mr Zammit should be dismissed from his post on the CHOGM task force insisting he was "not fit for purpose".
The Opposition had denounced the arraignment as undermining democracy.
The government has argued that the police acted independently on the basis of a complaint by a private citizen. But the PN said that when the comments were made, Mr Zammit was still in government employment, as head of the CHOGM security task force.
In his judgment, Magistrate Joe Mifsud said neither the plaintiff nor the police had presented a copy of the DVDs of the press conference. The prosecution had not indicated which part they felt was defamatory, nor did it transcribe the press conference.
The police, he said, were not convinced of soundness of the case and had to rely on the Attorney General's advice instead of giving up the case.
It noted, however, that the accused should have waited for the official Information and Data Protection Commissioner report before giving his press conference rather than base his arguments on a newspaper headline, which turned out to be incorrect.
Times of Malta had subsequently acknowledged that the headline (dated June 24, 2015) was incorrect, published a clarification and apologised to Mr Zammit.
"There should be more cooperation between journalists and sub-editors because they [journalists] often don't pick the headline," the Magistrate advised.
"A journalist who is good at reporting political stories may not necessarily have experience in reporting judicial proceedings," he said.
Magistrate Mifsud said "both politicians and the former police commissioner are subject to greater criticism".
He took note of the press conference given by Dr Azzopardi as well as a report in Times of Malta of a press conference the PN spokesman gave later and for which report the newspaper later published a clarification.
This, the court noted, was followed by an attempt by the parties to reach an out-of-court agreement.
Magistrate Mifsud quoted the late President Guido de Marco on practising the politics of persuasion.
The magistrate went on to say that public opinion was important for democracy.
"Cases are not decided by the people in Republic Street... The people can only voice their opinion," he said.
The court noted that although numerous editorial articles had been written, no charge was specified.
"Critique is fundamental in democracy but there are limits... It would have made more sense for the prosecution to invoke the Press Act," the magistrate said.
VICTORY FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION - PN
In a statement, the Nationalist Party said the judgement was a victory for freedom of expression and a defeat for Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s politics of intimidation.
The accusations, the PN said, were just one case in a series of government attempts intended to shut the Opposition’s mouth, as were the decisions to change the law to remove the PN’s billboards and the ridiculous decision by the Broadcasting Authority chairman to say that PN could not speak on the Panama scandal in a right of reply.
The PN said it wanted to make it clear that it would not give in to the government’s intimidation.
It congratulated Dr Azzopardi, who defended himself in a dignified manner and was proved right by the courts.
JUDGEMENT CONFIRMS THERE IS NO ATTACK ON DEMOCRACY - GOVERNMENT
In another statement, the government said the judgement confirmed that everyone was equal in front of the law.
Contrary to what the leader of the Opposition was trying to imply, justice in Malta was administered by institutions in the most independent and impartial manner, it said.
The government said that to get to its decision, the court did not need the Opposition to organise crowds outside the courts, whose behaviour was of no credit to anyone especially those who tried to present themselves as the defenders of honesty.
The judgement, the government said, confirmed that there was no attack on democracy or on freedom of expression in Malta as Simon Busuttil had tried to allege when he himself had made use of the same procedures against the president of the party in Opposition in the last legislature.
One hoped that Dr Busuttil would learn from his mistakes and place maturity before partisanship.