MPs Franco Debono and Jose' Herrera agreed today that criminal libel should be removed as part of a reform of the libel law while Nationalist MP Francis Zammit Dimech said that while he agreed in principle, there should be safeguards where compensation under civil law was not possible.

Speaking during a meeting of the parliamentary Committee for the Consolidation of Laws, Dr Debono, the committee's chairman, said he felt that while criminal libel should be removed, civil damages upon conviction for libel should be raised, not least because people's reputations could be ruined by libel. He pointed out that through internet, harm could now be more severe than before.

Dr Herrera said he felt libel cases should be heard by a judge and cases should not be assigned to a single judge, because of their sensitivity.

He also argued that libel cases should be decided quickly, to limit the potential damage which may be caused.

Dr Debono insisted that the law governing the right of reply should also be updated, with higher penalties when this right was not given. However in such cases, cases which end up in court should be civil, not criminal.

Dr Francis Zammit Dimech agreed that criminal libel was antiquated. However there could be cases of malicious libel where individuals could come out with something cheap, such as a pamphlet and, then it would be impossible to pay compensation. When a remedy was possible under civil law, then there was no problem, Dr Zammit Dimech said, but one needed to avoid the possibility of loopholes by leaving criminal sanction as a possibility.

Furthermore, the discussion had to start off from the premise of freedom of information and expression. Politicians and those who opted for public life had to acknowledge that they were subject to a higher level of scrutiny. The European Court of Human Right in 1986 set an important milestone in this regard. The limits of acceptable criticism were wider for politicians than private citizens.  

Dr Debono said freedom of expression was sacred. Everyone also agreed that anyone in public life was exposed to a higher degree of scrutiny but it was simplistic to stop there. The issue was of balancing rights and duties. One could not simply say or attribute whatever one liked with regard to public persons.

With regard to the the limit of fines, Dr Zammit Dimech said that one could review the limit set a number of years ago, one should not exaggerate.

He stressed that in between setting high penalties and freedom of the press, he preferred the latter.

Amid sharp exchanges with Dr Debono, who insisted that the deterrent should be sufficiently high, Dr Zammit Dimech said he was not again comparative studies in the Maltese context in which the Institute of Maltese Journalists could be involved.

Dr Debono agreed that the guiding principle should always be freedom of expression.

The committee was addressed by Malcolm Naudi, chairman of the Institute of Journalists, who agreed that the libel law should be updated. He called for a consolidation of laws, with several laws currently applicable to the different media.

Dr Zammit Dimech and Dr Herrera also noted problems about regulating the social media. Dr Zammit Dimech noted, as an example, how the newspapers and television stations currently could not report activities on the day before general elections, yet the social media continued at full blast. This was an unfair situation. Rather than shutting down the media, it should be the political parties that  should stop campaigning.

In updating the law to regulate the media, Malta should see what other countries, such as the UK, had done, Dr Zammit Dimech said.