Four libel judgments confirmed on appeal

The Court of Appeal has confirmed four judgments in libel suits filed against The Malta Independent and the author of a letter whereby defendants were ordered to pay a total of Lm1,400 in libel damages. The newspaper and the author were also ordered to pay double court costs as their appeals were deemed to be frivolous.

Fr Noel Grima, editor of The Malta Independent, and John Grech appealed from the judgments delivered in the libel suits filed against them by Prof. Anthony H. B. de Bono, Dr Joseph Troisi, Lino Zahra and Joseph Caruana, officials on the board of the United Nations International Institute on Aging, Malta (INIA).

In their writs plaintiffs had felt libelled by a letter published on January 4, 1999 under the heading "INIA's accountability" and they requested the court to condemn Fr Grima and Grech, the letter's author, to pay them damages.

The First Hall of the Civil Court had concluded that the letter contained serious allegations about plaintiffs, which allegations had not been proven to be accurate. The letter had alleged that Grech's daughter, who used to work at INIA, had suffered psychological harassment, and that the persons responsible for INIA had refused to render an account of their work to anyone, including the government. Furthermore, according to the letter, the institute was run in a mediocre and amateurish manner with poor administration of human and financial resources.

However, defendants had failed to submit their pleas before the court within the legal time limit, and had therefore not produced any evidence in support of the allegations contained in the letter.

The court added in its judgments that the right to freedom of expression could not be tantamount to licence to freely attack the reputation of another person by making unfounded and unproven allegations.

Defendants were therefore ordered to pay Lm300 each to Prof. De Bono, the director of INIA and Lm150 each to Dr Troisi, the deputy director. They were also ordered to pay Lm100 each to Lino Zahra, financial controller, and Lm150 each to Joseph Caruana, INIA's administrator.

The Court of Appeal composed of Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice Anton Depasquale and Mr Justice Albert J. Magri confirmed the judgments delivered by the First Hall of the Civil Court. In its judgments the appellate court found that defendants' appeals were frivolous, and that the first court had been correct in its assessment of the facts of the cases. Defendants were ordered to pay double the costs of the appeal.