A court found that former book council chair Mark Camilleri was discriminated against when the National Book Council refused to publish a review of his book A Rent Seeker’s Paradise.

A constitutional court also ordered that the council pay Camilleri €500 as compensation for breaching the author's rights.

The court handed down its judgment regarding a constitutional case Camilleri filed in 2022 against the book council and the state advocate, arguing that he was “discriminated against on the basis of his political opinion”.

He argued that his rights were breached when the council chose not to publish a review of his book and when the government chose not to renew his position as chairman, a post he held since 2013.

In 2021, Camilleri published A Rent Seeker’s Paradise which criticised the government and the labour party.

After his book was published, the council did not post a review of his book in the weekly review section in the newspaper Illum.

In the court’s judgement, it wrote how Camilleri’s successor, also called Mark Camilleri, refused to publish the review as the contents included “potential libellous content”.

He left it up to the member of the book council, Mark Vella to decide, but the review was never published.

The court was convinced with Camilleri’s complaints and declared that he was “deprived of his fundamental rights when he suffered discrimination due to his political opinion”.

However, the court did not find that Camilleri’s rights were breached, as there was no issue with the government’s decision to renew Camilleri’s contract.

The court found that his contract came to its natural end and it also cited instances where Camilleri was unprofessional as spoke in a “vulgar, insolent and aggressive” manner.

Therefore, the court justified that the decision not to renew his contract was justifiable. Camilleri was assisted by lawyer David Bonello. 

Correction March 14, 2025: A previous version contained a typo implying that the court found that Camilleri's rights were breached.