The PN has finally shown a much-awaited, desperately needed sign of life in the form of a promising proposal for a reform bill that would implement the recommendations given by the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry.
Responding to this, Robert Musumeci, our practical 2-in-1 service combining architect with lawyer advising the government on planning and building regulations, complained of the “almost absolute immunity” journalists would benefit from. It would make it less easy for the kind of people he tirelessly supports to financially cripple journalists exposing the truth and holding politicians accountable by filing international libel suits against them.
Malta is under European watch following Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination. A recent human rights report from the Council of Europe recommended that the government implements reforms to improve the protection of journalists, while the results of the public inquiry confirmed that the state must bear responsibility for Caruana Galizia’s assassination. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, also called for the government to implement the recommendations of the public inquiry following a visit to Malta last year.
Despite the government vowing to take action, its apologists are still twisting logic to defend its unacceptable culture of impunity. The opposition has now beaten the government to this important task. The PN bill would also go hand in hand with the anti-SLAPP initiative which the European Commission conceived to protect journalists and human rights defenders in strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP).
Against the backdrop of the continuing intimidation and demonisation of journalists, it is no wonder that incidents of hate speech directed at journalists and critics of the government keep being the norm, with the definition of free speech and hate speech often being blurred.
The first thing the government should do, if it truly wants to improve the protection of journalists, is raise awareness and ensure education about the significance of social commentary and civic participation, not just by journalists but also by civil society and all citizens, in protecting public interest and holding the government accountable.
Our education system should equip us to fiercely guard this pillar of democracy and instil a proactive and critical spirit to turn us into actors rather than passive subjects. At the mention of any nonsense suggesting otherwise, a whole cathedral of bells should be ringing in our ears.
Instead, in a Facebook post reacting to the PN proposals, Musumeci wondered how we could determine who is qualified to be a journalist in the same way we determine who is qualified to be a lawyer, doctor or architect.
Which authority and criteria would qualify journalists whose job is precisely to criticise the authorities and report the truth independently?- Miriam Galea
Musumeci is still interested in silencing journalists by suggesting that only those approved by some hierarchy are valid, a totalitarian argument kept vague, because going into the practical details would clearly lead to nothing but censorship.
Designating who has the right to speak or not, who is valid or not, is discriminatory. A person’s profession, level of education or identity does not determine their right to free speech and certainly not their integrity. Which authority and criteria would qualify journalists whose job is precisely to criticise the authorities and report the truth independently? Will we control free speech on social media platforms too?
Anyone who, most of all in a country where a journalist has been killed, attempts to redefine, relativise and twist the basic, fundamental notions of free speech and hate speech, already enshrined in the law, and believe he can assign the right to free speech only to conveniently designated individuals, “qualified” enough not to step on his feet, should never be regarded as anything but a danger to society.
In short, Robert Musumeci is saying, I believe in free speech, but …only for those I choose, only for those who toe the line, only for those who will not speak freely or ruffle any feathers, those who will tolerate and conceal my corruption and guard the status quo. Only ‘learned men’ can speak, only those without an imagination, a conscience or a mind of their own.
That such undemocratic language is uttered in our times is incredible, all the more so when it comes from supposedly more educated individuals such as so-called legal experts, politicians and academics. Any anti-journalist sentiment in our country is even more horrific and alarming given the recent past, yet the Labour Party seems to keep at its old twisted methods of discrediting journalists to secure an unaccountable state whose government can get away with murder.
Let us not forget that the most powerful argument weaponised against Daphne was that she was simply a desperate woman with a laptop, a hate blogger gossiping away, ‘biċċa blogger’. Robert Musumeci complains that we know how one qualifies as a lawyer, an architect and a doctor, but not as a journalist. What we do know, however, is how to become so corrupt you need to silence journalists.
The PN’s reform bill is a welcome solid proposal. As the PL’s majority irrespectively looms over the upcoming election, rather than trying to keep all and sundry happy, what the PN can offer to the people is perhaps filling the one gap that the Labour party has left gaping open. What some voters may hopefully be feeling the lack of, amid Labour’s flawed progress and compromised prosperity, is a shred of decency and assurance that Malta is not rotten to the core.
Miriam Galea, an artist, works in Brussels as a translator.