The European Court of Human Rights has awarded the Nationalist Party’s Michael Falzon compensation and moral damages after it rejected several decisions taken by Maltese law courts after it found his rights were violated when he was fined for an article penned in 2007.

The case dates back to May 2007 when the Labour Party’s Michael Falzon, who was deputy leader at the time and is currently a sitting Minister, said he had received an anonymous e-mail together with threatening letters. Falzon described how he filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Police, asking him to investigate the matter.

Days later, the PN’s Falzon penned an opinion piece remarking how one could see signs that “within Labour there are people who can influence and interfere in decision taken by the police force. This is happening when they are still in Opposition. Asking what would happen in this area once they are in government is, therefore, a legitimate question”.

The PL’s Falzon filed for libel, and in 2010, a Court of Magistrates ordered the author of the article to pay €2,500 in damages to Falzon.

In addition, the newspaper editor responsible for where the article appeared was also ordered to pay €1,000 in damages. This judgment was confirmed on appeal.

The PN’s Falzon took the case to the Constitutional Court one year later, arguing that the level of protection being given to a public figure such as the PL’s Falzon only served to silence freedom of expression. This argument was also rejected by the court, under Mr Justice Joseph Azzopardi.

An appeal came to the same conclusion as Mr Justice Azzopardi, with the same arguments being rejected again. Presiding judges Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Noel Cuschieri declared that an author could not be shielded by an opinion or value judgment to attribute misleading facts to a third party.

In 2013, the PN’s Falzon took his case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). His case was presided over by seven judges, including Maltese Chief Justice Emeritus Vincent De Gaetano. In their judgment, it was said that the court is not convinced that Falzon’s statements could be viewed as a serious attack which could impinge on Falzon’s personal enjoyment of his private life.

“There is no doubt that the behaviour of a politician and the possible consequences, if any, on the public and third parties, are matters of public interest. Indeed, questioning the behaviour of a politician and holding the latter to account undoubtedly contributes to a debate of general interest for Maltese society as a whole,” the ECtHR said.

It declared the PN’s Falzon’s statements as being a value judgments representing his personal analysis of the PL Falzon’s actions.

 “The [ECtHR] takes issue with the decisions of the domestic courts concerning unuttered statements and their decisions to consider certain statements as factual (which they claimed had not been proved) as opposed to value judgements…

“In the court’s view, by using a style which may have involved a certain degree of provocation, it is plausible that the applicant was raising awareness as to the possibility of any abuse being perpetrated by the deputy leader of the party in Opposition and that he was calling for action by the minister in charge…

“[I]n the court’s view, the questions posed by the applicant, which appearto have been the main reason of hiscondemnation by the domestic courts, were legitimate questions having a sufficient factual basis: [Dr Falzon’s] own speech. Nothing in the article suggests that the applicant was acting in bad faith,” it continued.

The judges declared that the Maltese courts “did not appropriately perform a balancing exercise between the need to protect [Dr Falzon’s] reputation and the [European Convention of Human Rights] standard, which requires very strong reasons for justifying restrictions on debates on questions of public interest.

“The domestic courts’ decisions, very narrow in scope, reiterating what, in their view, was implied by the impugned statements and requiring proof thereof, and upholding the right to reputation without explaining why this outweighed the freedom of expression of the applicant, and without taking into consideration other factors relevant to this balancing exercise, cannot be considered to have fulfilled the obligation incumbent upon the courts to adduce ‘relevant and sufficient’ reasons that could justify the interference at issue,” they remarked.

The PN’s Falzon was awarded €2,500 in compensation, €4,000 in moral damages and €6,340 in expenses.