A court of appeal has overturned a judgment and declared that a blog published by MaltaToday executive director Saviour Balzan, casting shadows upon the reputation of former Labour minister Joe Brincat, was indeed defamatory.

The blog, uploaded in September 2019, referred to the time, over 30 years ago, when Brincat was arrested by police in Italy on suspicion that he had been aiding a client in smuggling valuables.

News reports at the time alleged that Maltese politicians sought to intervene with the Italian authorities so as to obtain Brincat’s release from custody.

However, it later emerged that a court in Cosenza had ordered Brincat’s release on grounds of lack of evidence. The prosecution had appealed but the Corte di Cassazione confirmed that decision.

In 1994, the Catanzaro courts also cleared Brincat of involvement in the alleged smuggling, declaring that the alleged crime “did not subsist.”

In a bid to clear his name on the international scene, Brincat took his case before the European Court of Human Rights which held that his rights were breached by the arrest and also by the unreasonable delay in the criminal proceedings before the Italian courts.

Balzan had at the time written about the incident in the newspaper Alternattiva, basing his reports on judicial decisions and articles published by Italian media.

He referred to those “privileged” writings by way of defence against Brincat’s libel claim, arguing that his recent blog post was simply the expression of “an honest opinion” based on those writings.

The Magistrates’ Court had upheld that defence and in September 2021 declared that Balzan’s comments were not defamatory.

But Brincat took his claims before the court of appeal and succeeded in obtaining a revocation of that decision.

Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti said that the plea of “honest opinion” could not be availed of by any person but only specifically by “an honest person” in terms of law. This implied an element of good faith which was essential for that plea to be raised successfully.

In light of European Court jurisprudence, the State was duty-bound to safeguard both the right to freedom of expression as well as the right to a person’s reputation and the court had to strike a balance between the two.

When writing about the incident years ago, Balzan was clearly expressing an honest opinion in good faith, based upon privileged material available at the time.

However, the same could not be said for Balzan’s article published in 2019. Years before that second story, Brincat had been cleared of all criminal liability and also won his claims before the ECHR.

Balzan had made no reference to that, and instead simply based his story on his writing 30 years before.

Balzan had a right to remind the public about the charges faced by the former politician and also express his view on how that impinged upon Brincat’s suitability to speak about good governance.

But he had no right to state that were it not for political intervention, Brincat would have spent years in jail, said Mr Justice Chetcuti.

Balzan had no right to “hide” behind a 30-year old publication without verifying updates and it needed no stretch of the imagination to conclude that there may have been developments 30 years down the line.

That was where the first court had got it wrong, since it failed to lend sufficient weight to the fact that the writings on which Balzan based himself were 30 years old.

Balzan had also refused to publish a clarification when requested by Brincat and that proved further his lack of good faith.

Balzan hardly had an interest in expressing an honest opinion within the framework of responsible journalism, but simply wanted to insinuate a version of events most advantageous to the point he wanted to make, went on the judge.

The court therefore upheld the appeal, declared the article defamatory and awarded Brincat €1000 in moral damages, limiting that sum even as not to cause a “chilling effect” on journalists.