Undermining one’s own credibility

The recent damning judgment handed down by Magistrate Rachel Montebello, finding Jason Azzopardi guilty of having defamed former Labour minister and now backbencher Carmelo Abela, awarding him €7,000 in defamatory damages, should be an eye-opener to all those who believe that freedom of expression should be considered as a sacred principle, and, hence, should not be subjected to any limitations. by the government.

The magistrate made it very clear that freedom of expression has its limitations. It should never serve to “effectively demolish the reputation of an individual without being certain that a factual concrete basis exists for such imputations”.

Jason Azzopardi (above) was found guilty of having defamed former Labour minister Carmelo Abela. File photos

May I add that not only had Azzopardi tried to demolish Abela’s reputation but had succeeded in ruining his political career too. In fact, while Abela had managed to be re-elected in the 2022 general election, because Labour voters were convinced that what Azzopardi had alleged about Abela was just a politically-motivated lie, the prime minister did not reappoint him as a member of his cabinet.

The unbelievable story concocted by Azzopardi against Abela ‒ widely respected as an honest and exemplary person and politician ‒ was that, when he was employed at HSBC as senior insurance and statistics officer at its head office at Qormi, he “was linked to a failed armed robbery at the same HSBC head office”.

Carmelo Abela

At the time Azzopardi made his despicable allegation in a Facebook post on April 9, 2021, Abela was a cabinet minister. So, Azzopardi was not only trying to demolish Abela’s reputation but also undermine the whole cabinet at the same time.

What is even more despicable is that, instead of realising he had made an unforgivable mistake and apologised to Abela, Azzopardi wants to keep a shadow of doubt hanging over the Labour MP because he has indicated he intends to lodge an appeal against the judgment.

How low is Azzopardi ready to go to satisfy his anti-Labour vitriol? What is certain is that, instead of demolishing Abela’s reputation, he has gravely undermined his own credibility as someone fighting corruption. He has only proven he is a fighter against anything and anyone connected with the Labour Party and the government.

I close on a very similar but different case. On Sunday, October 13, Kevin Cassar’s weekly anti-Labour rant targeted once again Robert Abela in his article ‘Robert Abela’s pure recklessness’.

He had the gall to depict our prime minister as some kind of dictator like the Cambodian dictator. In fact, Cassar added, “even worse”. When going well over the top with such incredulous exaggerations, Cassar does not realise that, instead of demolishing the prime minister’s integrity and reputation ‒ as Azzopardi had tried to do to Abela ‒ he is undermining his own credibility as a serious and responsible opinion writer.

EDDY PRIVITERA – Naxxar