The Prime Minister's reaction to a call by academics and journalists urging him to consult with the public on a media law reform was "replete with misleading and false statements", Media Reform Initiative said on Friday.
On Wednesday, 130 academics and journalists wrote to Robert Abela, complaining that the government has yet to publish a report produced by a committee of media experts about the reform. The document, they said, was finalised six weeks ago.
They expressed "grave concern" that a process intended to strengthen free speech and journalism was being carried out without transparency.
Reacting, the Office of the Prime Minister said on Wednesday that the government was bound by the terms of reference of the report, which state that this has to be tabled in Parliament.
The report, OPM added, had been received when Parliament was in recess as a number of extensions had been requested.
Referring to calls for a consultation process, OPM said the government had already drafted a number of laws to strengthen journalism and, on its own initiative, passed these on to the Committee of Experts for their initial reaction.
But on Friday, Media Reform Initiative expressed concern that the OPM's reply indicated that the government planned on pushing media legislation through parliament without prior public consultation through the publication of a White Paper.
"This means that the government alone will decide how everyone’s freedom of expression will be regulated.
"It also means that press freedom will be regulated within parameters decided by the very government that frequently labels investigative journalism – undertaken at great risk – as fake news or political spin, or simply treats it as irrelevant in a chilling echo of the conditions of impunity that enabled Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination," it said in a statement.
The government’s "ongoing refusal to immediately publish" the report by the Committee of Experts on Media was equally concerning it added.
"Although the report was ready before parliament was adjourned, the Prime Minister met the committee only after parliament adjourned. He then used this as a feeble excuse to justify his procrastination in publishing the report.
"It bears repeating that the committee was set up in the wake of the Public Inquiry into the circumstances of Caruana Galizia’s assassination, that its report is part of the work required to redress the systemic failures that enabled Daphne CaruanaGalizia’s murder, and the public inquiry had concluded that 'the State must bear responsibility for the assassination because it created an atmosphere of impunity generated from the highest levels in the heart of the administration within the Office of the Prime Minister that like an octopus spread to other entities'."