The legal team of Economy Minister Chris Cardona have filed an objection, on the last day permissible by law, to the request for his phone records to be preserved for the night he was allegedly at a German brothel called FKK Acapulco.

Journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia had alleged that on 30 January, when Dr Cardona and his chosen aide Joe Gerada, while on a state visit to Germany, had visited a brothel in Velbert. Dr Cardona and his aide vehemently denied the claims, while others criticised the controversial blogger for releasing the story without a picture to accompany the allegations.

She had claimed that a credible source who was also at the brothel spotted the Minister and immediately contacted her.

Both Dr Cardona and Mr Gerada filed two libel cases each against the blogger, and had warrant of seizures accepted meaning that a total €49,000 was frozen in her bank accounts. A crowd fund had managed to generate a total of €70,000.

The legal team of Mrs Caruana Galizia had filed a court application to preserve the phone records of Dr Cardona and Mr Gerada on the night in question, because had they switched on roaming while they were allegedly at or within the vicinity of the brothel, this would be traceable through mobile communication records.

In the court application, Labour Party lawyer Pawlu Lia contended that the request for the preservation of phone records is a “fishing expedition” and the onus of proof is on Mrs Caruana Galizia.

Dr Lia blasted her for instead of choosing the legal defence available to her under the Press Act, she instead chose the defence of “fair comment”.

By choosing a Press Act defence under Article 12, this would have meant that she would have had to first provide what proof she has at her disposal whilst backing up that the allegations were made in the name or “public interest”, that “she was carrying out her work as part of her duties” and that “the facts refer to her competences pertaining to her role” as a journalist.

“The defendant [Mrs Caruana Galizia] instead chose to simply plead that she only published comments that amount to fair comment, based on facts that are substantially correct. In this way she chose not to provide proof until the time which the plaintiff [Dr Cardona] has to exhibit his proof ends,” the court application reads.

Dr Lia chastised Mrs Caruana Galizia for failing to carry out the proper verification on the allegations she received, and that had she done her job properly there would be no need to request to preserve phone records.

“She is not entitled to, and the Courts should not enable her, first insult and make any allegations without basing what she is saying on anything, and then after request the Courts to assist her in a fishing expedition into the private life of the plaintiff [Minister Cardona] in order to find something which justifies her insults”, the court application reads.

He argued that should the Courts accept the request to preserve phone records, it would be setting “a dangerous precedent”, because it would give Mrs Caruana Galizia the “strength to say what she likes without any proof, and then ask the Courts to ignore all rights [of whoever she is writing about], and not just procedural rights but also fundamental rights”.

Dr Lia continued to argue that while the request to preserve phone records was made based on a specific article of the Laws of Malta, such a request does not exempt the right to data protection and privacy.

He said that the request for the phone records is not being done in the interest of the public, and that it is a civil case has been filed against a private citizen who failed to do their duties of fact checking before publishing.

A number of arguments were raised based on European case law, where the right to privacy is sacrosanct and can only be breached in the fight against “serious criminality”.

“In other words, the right to privacy is so important that it cannot be ignored for the interests of third parties based on defamatory allegations on facts that are supposedly already in [her] possession”.

The Courts have been requested to reject the application to preserve the phone records, and have been asked to prevent the ‘fishing expedition’ that Mrs Caruana Galizia’s legal team is attempting to carry out.