Mark Camilleri loses court case over Rosianne Cutajar chat publication

Mark Camilleri's rights were not breached when a judge instructed that criminal action be taken against him for publishing chats between Rosianne Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech, a constitutional court ruled on Monday.

The case stems from claims made in Camilleri’s 2021 book A Rent Seeker’s Paradise, including allegations that Cutajar had an affair with Fenech to get a leg up in her political career and that she had received “corrupt money” from him. 

At the time, Cutajar had filed libel proceedings against Camilleri, calling the claims defamatory. Cutajar later dropped the proceedings, saying her priorities had changed.

In defending his claims, however, Camilleri published a log of more than 2,200 WhatsApp chats between Cutajar and Fenech, suggesting the two were intimate.

The day after the chats were published, Cutajar’s lawyers filed a request for an investigation in the criminal courts, arguing that the publication of the chats breached a court ban on information related to Fenech’s case, as well as Cutajar’s fundamental right for private family life.

After a police investigation into the matter, Justice Edwina Grima instructed police authorities to take action against Camilleri.

Camilleri took the matter to Malta’s highest court, filing a constitutional case in which he argued that his fundamental rights were being breached, including his right to freedom of expression and his right to a fair hearing.

He argued that the publication of the chats was in the public interest.

The court dismissed all Camilleri’s arguments, finding that his right to a fair hearing had not been breached.

Camilleri was given ample opportunity to participate in the libel case before it was dropped, the court ruled. Meanwhile, police had attempted to take a statement from Camilleri during their investigation but he did not make himself readily available.

There was also no breach of Camilleri’s right to freedom of expression, the courts ruled.

The courts determined that the chats were leaked from the same criminal proceedings against Yorgen Fenech which are subject to a court ban. The court condemned the leaks, saying they are coming from “people who should know better and are making the prosecution’s work more difficult through their actions”.

The court also criticised Camilleri, noting that his habit of threatening or intimidating people with recordings or text messages when he needed something from them was “characteristic of his ‘journalistic’ work”.

Furthermore, Camilleri showed little concern that the publication of the chats could damage or prejudice the ongoing case against Fenech, the courts said, finding that the State has a legitimate interest in enforcing the court ban to protect judicial integrity.

The courts were presided over by Judge Toni Abela, with lawyers Julian Farrugia and Miguel Degabriele appearing for the State Advocate.