“It’s an absolute non-starter”: Judge Bonello on Konrad Mizzi’s lawyers’ request to the court

Yesterday morning on Radio Malta’s Għandi Xi Ngħid, Judge (Giovanni) Bonello, who sat for several years in the European Court of Human Rights, said that the request made by Konrad Mizzi’s lawyers to have me stripped of my right to protect my sources is “an absolute non-starter”.

“It’s an absolute non-starter, and society must understand that it benefits greatly from the legal protection granted to journalists’ sources,” he said.

You will see from this how he reminds us that it is not journalists who are protected by the law, but their sources – a fact that seems to have escaped the notice of many.

He also dismissed Dr Pawlu Lia’s claim that I am not a journalist when writing on this website, saying “a journalist is anyone who habitually uses a means of communication to express their opinion and to relate facts on current affairs to the public”.

“It should not even cross anyone’s mind that they might or should force journalists, no matter who they are, to reveal their sources,” Judge Bonello said.