Magistrate Francesco Depasquale today said that all criminal defamation laws should be abolished and replaced with appropriate civil defamation laws.

He was delivering his judgment in a criminal case against blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia instituted by former Illum editor Julia Farrugia. The blogger was not found guilty of defamation over a series of blogs on Mrs Farrugia and her father. She was cleared due to a missing criminal complaint document.

The magistrate referred to a 2007 Resolution declaration entitled ‘Towards decriminalisation of defamation’ which was upheld by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly and which is embraced by Member States, which read: “to abolish prison sentences for defamation without delay; guarantee that there is no misuse of criminal prosecutions for defamation and safeguard the independence of prosecutors in these cases; define the concept of defamation more precisely in their legislation so as to avoid an arbitrary application of the law and to ensure that civil law provides effective protection of the dignity of persons affected by defamation”.

The same resolution declared: “Prison sentences for defamation should be abolished without further delay. In particular it exhorts States whose laws still provide for prison sentences – although prison sentences are not actually imposed – to abolish them without delay so as not to give any excuse, however unjustified, to those countries which continue to impose them, thus provoking a corrosion of fundamental freedoms”.

The court also referred to a recommendation made by the Council of Europe’s committee of ministers entitled ‘Declaration on Freedom of Political Debate in the Media’. An excerpt of the report read: “damages and fines for defamation or insult must bear a reasonable relationship of proportionality to the violation of the rights or reputation of others, taking into consideration any possible effective and adequate voluntary remedies...”

Lawyer Joe Zammit Maempel defended Mrs Caruana Galizia.