So, Fr David Muscat gets a suspended six-month sentence for ‘hate speech’ and the public reaction predictably divides into two. One group crows that justice has been served. The other howls that Muscat is a victim of anti-Christian prejudice and a woke agenda.

It’s neither. The result should leave free speech advocates ambivalent. Madam Justice Edwina Grima got the law right – something to be grateful for, since in recent years at least two magistrates have misinterpreted it.

But she bafflingly applied it wrong in this particular case. By disregarding the particulars of context, she departed from the international guidance given by various human rights bodies, including the Strasbourg court.

The judge spelled out the principle of what is misleadingly called the ‘hate speech’ law. What’s prohibited is dangerous speech.

What makes it dangerous is not offensiveness, as such. It’s the real risk that, irrespective of intent, it might incite behaviour that endangers the life of the targeted persons. Or, that social hostility makes the targets feel inhibited from exercising their rights, say, to practise their religion or live out their identity.

International guidance states that the danger must be imminent, not merely possible. The link to danger has a flip side. It means the default position is that even offensive speech is protected by law, which is there to protect free expression. It is only in cases of danger that free expression may be curtailed.

Congratulating a judge for getting the law right might seem like a backhanded compliment. But this is Malta, where an absurd situation persists.

First, we have a cottage industry for outrage where any insulting, deplorable speech is dubbed as ‘hate’ even though it’s legally protected.

Second, we have a police overreaction. Various people have been charged with hate speech when they plainly were boors or poison-tongued but not inciting anyone.

These absurdities risk taking attention away from real hate speech. The insults and threatening language aimed at journalists, civil society activists and African migrants have been linked to real danger and violence.

In some cases, the insults have been shown to be politically orchestrated.

But when these cases swim in a wider sea of red herrings, the accusations become normalised and the public becomes numb to them.

Thanks to this judgment, we are in a better position to name and shame. A journalist’s or a blogger’s face on a billboard is real hate speech and should never be repeated.

So are oblique comments on Facebook calling a journalist a ‘witch’, which reasonably could have a chilling effect on the exercise of a journalist’s rights.

This is not because being called a ‘witch’ is, in itself, deeply offensive. It’s because in the particular context where ‘witch’ is code, in Malta, for Daphne Caruana Galizia and her fate, it is linked to dehumanising language with sinister consequences.

Unfortunately, however, the feeling for specific context was absent in the judgment of Fr Muscat’s actions.

In place of evidence, we have the hunches of the police and Attorney General’s Office and the moral convictions of a judge- Ranier Fsadni

Recall that, writing on Facebook in a private exchange, he ‘diagnosed’ Abner Aquilina’s malaise as being a ‘cocktail’ of the ‘disorder’ of gay or bisexual behaviour added to schizophrenia and a ‘maleficent effect’.

He added: ‘Abner needs help. [Satanic] possession is the least of it … gay behaviour (gayyaġni) is worse…’

This is crackpot writing. It’s also unethical; even qualified personnel shouldn’t diagnose people in public. And it violates the Catholic catechism’s precept that the Church teaching on homosexual acts (that they are ‘gravely disordered’) should be taught with sensitivity for the impact on the person.

The archbishop was right to be furious. But Muscat was charged with breaking the law, not with being unkind, unethical and out of his depth.

As it happens, the written evidence shows that Muscat was arguing for pity, not contempt. Patronising? Yes. Against the law? No.

It was the sum of three factors, not any single one, that he linked to murderousness.

As for gay behaviour being worse than demonic possession… All he was saying was that, with demonic possession, we are blameless, whereas we are responsible for our sins.

Is this what the fuss was about? Instead of laughing out aloud, we dragged a priest to court so that, to add to the absurdity, a secular judge could lecture him on true religion.

The judge added that, as a priest, Muscat could have had a heightened, dangerous impact on his Facebook followers. For this, she only provided her ‘moral conviction’.

But Muscat has a long record of speaking out of turn on TV, newspapers and social media. Far from speaking with the authority of the Church behind him, his public persona is that of a maverick priest.

Had there been any imminent danger caused by his words, we’d have long known it. Yet, no act of homophobic violence has ever been traced to his influence.

His FB post on Aquilina attracted hundreds of views – largely because of the publicity given to it by the news reports (though he was blamed for the attention). But the prosecution didn’t produce a single comment beneath the post urging any hatred or violence against LGBTQ people. We must assume there was none.

In short, Muscat was convicted on the basis of a social identity he does not have.

A judge feared he endangered a vulnerable group despite a long-term absence of evidence that his homophobic remarks have ever incited anyone.

In place of evidence, we have the hunches of the police and Attorney General’s Office and the moral convictions of a judge.

If this precedent stands, we will have to calibrate what we say not just against what the law says, but against what we guess the judge will guess could have been the consequences of something that never happened.