Tunisia is the sort of place where they send writers to jail for defamation – and it makes the world news
I imagine our heroine will now see this as a death threat and report me to the police again - sigh
The goody-two-shoes at Malta Today have come over all Miss-Violet-Lumsden and brought out the smelling salts because – horrors – I am challenging authority.
How dare I criticise magistrates?
How dare I refuse to have my case presided over by a magistrate I consider unfit to hear it because of his involvement in a similar situation to the one being decided on?
How dare I say I am going to petition the Chief Justice?
How dare I not accept the shoddy situation as it is and learn to live with it, like they do, and apparently, everyone else besides?
How dare I do what is supposed to be their job, or was until they decided it might be a good idea to hunt with the hounds rather than run with the hare?
You would have expected Malta Today to touch on the archaic law which would send writers to jail for defaming public persons. Many countries have laws like this, but they are now considered dead letters.
When they are used, it is usually in non-democratic states, and the fact makes the world news. See this story ‘wired’ round the world by the Press Association yesterday:
A Tunisian journalist and human rights activist was freed after spending four months in prison for ‘insulting the dignity’ of a man he interviewed for an online video.
Lawyer Nejib Chebbi said that Zouhair Makhlouf was freed.
A court in Grombalia, about 25 miles from the North African nation’s capital, Tunis, ordered Mr Makhlouf to pay a fine of 6,000 dinars in addition to the jail term meted out last autumn.
Not to put too fine a point on it, it would be an arch-collaborator of the Labour Party – Consuelo Herrera – to seek to have me jailed for criticising her behaviour.
The Labour Party simply does not understand the fundamental concepts which underpin democracy, and it has shown this repeatedly over the last 40 years.
Even now, an inability to understand democracy and civil liberties seems to be a sine qua non for throwing your weight behind Labour, whether you’re mil-klassi tal-haddiema or tal-mitilkless.
I thought this comment, posted on timesofmalta.com beneath the story about my prosecution for defamation pretty much summed things up:
J Galea
I have no knowledge or interest in this case but I do note that criminal libel is a dying species in the developed democratic world with an action in tort being the usual way of settling a matter like this, if indeed the written words are libellous.
If matters are so serious for criminal libel to be considered, you would imagine the Attorney-General should sanction such a measure and not a political figure, even if the latter is versed in the law.
The police should act on a request from the AG not an individual person involved in the case, whether that be a magistrate, the chief justice or any other mortal for that matter.
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” said Voltaire. Whilst defamation is a wrong and where proven should be remedied, free speech should not be sacrificed on an altar of authority without proper investigations in line with proper procedure.
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Daphne. I think that you have stepped on sacred grounds. You will soon realise how united these people are in times of needs.
[Daphne – Most problems have a solution; even problems like ‘those people’.]
Though your method of treating this abusive behaviour by people who hold positions of trust may be regarded by some as too graphic or distasteful, I for one believe that if it were not for people like you and for Fr Joe Borg all this despicable behaviour would go unnoticed by the great majority of citizens who go to court to seek unattainable justice considering the prevailing circumstances.
Shame on all journalists who keep mum about these abuses! They are not worthy of their position.
The following three excerpts from today’s timesofmalta.com press digest are a good indication how responsible leaders are in tackling abuse and corruption perpetrated by people who hold positions of trust.
Al Jezeera says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has suspended his chief of staff while an inquiry is held into allegations that he solicited sex from a job applicant. Last week an Israeli TV station showed footage of Rafiq al-Husseini undressing in a hotel room with a woman who was not his wife and inviting her to bed. Mr al-Husseini, who denies any wrongdoing, says he is the victim of a plot.
A Swiss parliamentarian has told the German daily Bild he would aim to expose German public figures over alleged tax manipulations if Berlin goes ahead with plans to buy stolen data on tax-evaders with Swiss bank accounts. Alfred Heer of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) said financial sources have evidence politicians and judges from Germany keep accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein for the purposes of evading tax.
The Irish Examiner reports that survivors of priestly abuse have demanded leadership and accountability from Pope Benedict as bishops prepared for a major Vatican summit over the scandals. The 24 senior clergymen will take part in unprecedented two-day talks after being hauled before the Pontiff over the sexual abuse revelations that have rocked the Irish church.
Too graphic or distasteful, eh? Perhaps they failed too notice that the graphic material was provided by the lady herself.
And no. I don’t mean the photos in Facebook.
For those who may have missed Fr Joe Borg’s article of yesterday in The Sunday Times, here’s the link:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100214/religion/unguilded-silence
Tally ho, Daphne – kuragg. The tide will turn. I would however recommend you not to open too many battle lines. If you’r issue is Ms. Piggy – leave Kermit out of it. Not that I care about Kermit – but there is a time and a place for everything if you want people on your side.
[Daphne – Miss Piggy and Kermit are an indivisible issue.]
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2010/02/12/the-magistrate-the-magistrates-lover-the-lovers-brother-his-wife-and-the-melita-cable-kaxxa-and-the-picnic-cooler/
Read the above, Marcus.
If you had to write a book of the experiences citizens have had with the shoddy, twisted situations that exist in our judiciary, you’d end up with a 3-foot thick volume.
Malta Today is correct. The vast majority of citizens have come to accept that this is just the way things are. Citizens are only willing to go so far.
Personal involvement in a case, and the desire not to further complicate it, are the two factors that lead to this deafening silence.
It’s also human nature at this point in our evolution.
Once it’s over, they just move on with their lives.
It is therefore very comforting to see people like DCG doing just that, with the cojones required to do so.
Fact is part of her life IS dedicated, as one of her professions nonetheless, to doing just that.
Magistrate Scerri Herrera is fuming simply because, as we say in Maltese, she seems to have found a hat that … finally …. fits her.
All the hullaballoo she is createning is mere sabre-rattling.
In my eyes, this is just as bad as Arrigo not stepping down when he should have.
The facts speak for themselves.
Arrogance is the worst characteristic that eventually bites back the hardest.
And it will.
Jail? No worries, DCG. Not unless they want a mob with torches and pitchforks outside Castille.
When people discuss whether they should take a matter to court, some tend to finish off their argument with this saying:’Kif jifhimha l-imhallef/magistrat.’
That is why it is important for a magistrate/judge to have integrity and to follow the proper code of ethics because he has to decide on issues which affect people’s lives.
Now imagine a magistrate/judge deciding on matters of which he was guilty himself albeit unknown by others. Codes of ethics and laws are there for a reason.
I wish everyone of us would ask himself the question of whether we feel comfortable with some of the judiciary presiding over our court cases.
There’s lots of talk (and hogwash) about objectivity in journalism whenever anyone dares criticise someone in authority, yet nothing is said about the impartiality – or lack of it – in our courts.
People are afraid to speak out. That itself speaks volumes.
On the contrary and pretty soon, I think it’s going to be Miss Piggy eating cuisses de grenouille rather than Kermit eating bacon.
The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish.
– Robert Jackson
http://www.timesofmalta.com/blogs/view/20100215/alison-bezzina/it-must-have-been-fate
The UK has recently abolished criminal libel. However in the UK the amount of damages awarded in civil cases is usually much larger than the damages awarded in Malta.
Criminal libel, on the other hand, still exists in many countries, including most European countries. In Malta many libel cases are not brought before the criminal courts.
The point whether criminal libel is antiquated is a moot point. However once the law exists, it must be applied.
[Daphne – Not necessarily. The Prince of Wales could have had journalists hanged, drawn and quartered, or imprisoned in the Tower of London, for defaming him with that leaked telephone conversation about his desire to be his lover’s tampon.]
Please note Miss Violet Lumsden has nothing to do with me!
We are not related.