Much has been said about a magistrate's gag order last week that prevented the Xarabank television programme from airing an interview with the person currently facing charges over the attempted murder of a police officer.

There is absolutely nothing about this case that gives anyone any sense of solace and, in fact, the grisly details of the incident and the horrific injuries sustained by the officer, on the contrary, could lead many to question their faith in humanity.

The fact of the matter is that the youngster, Liam Debono, accused of running down PC Simon Schembri, has already been all but hung, drawn and quartered by the court of public opinion.

But the other fact of the matter is that this young man, whatever one may think of him or the circumstances of the crime committed that day, deserves a fair day in court, and he deserves to be considered innocent until proven guilty.

That basic presumption of innocence is one of the underpinnings of the legal system and that right must be afforded to all and sundry, and Debono is no exception to that rule.

The only problem is that the way things seem to be panning out for that young man, he appears to be guilty until proven guilty. And the magistrate who gagged the media from airing an interview with him last Friday may very well have now become complicit to that.

We find it difficult to understand just how the magistrate applied the gag order on the television programme, preventing it from broadcasting an interview with Debono without even summoning the interviewer to testify about the interview he conducted and the conditions under which it was conducted.

Even worse, we find it difficult to fathom just how the magistrate reached the conclusion he did without even watching the interview to determine what was said and how it could impinge on a case that, in all likelihood, will wind up before a trial by jury of his peers.

So the magistrate decided on an issue such as this, which could also effectively open a huge cans of worms for the media as far as the unwritten sub judice rule is concerned.

He did so without even speaking to the journalist involved and without even previewing the interview that he gagged, which we are certain would have been made readily available by the show's producers.

Quite apart from the repercussions on the free press, an issue of great concern for us here at The Malta Independent, there is the issue of the gross imbalance that the magistrate has created with the gag order.

Since the horrible incident, the youngster has virtually become public enemy number one, a household name while the victim, too, has also become a household name after all that he has gone through and suffered in the line of duty.

The victim and the accused are two very different stories, of course, but natural justice demands that they are treated in equal measure and in equal stead.

And that is where the problem lies. PC Schembri has, as is his perfect right, given interviews, has spearheaded the institution of an association for policemen injured in the line of duty as he was, and he has led a protest against the ill treatment of police officers. 

And in so doing he has been perfectly within his rights, and then some.

But what about Debono? Should he, too, not be allowed to speak about himself, and the trials and tribulations of his life?  Should he too not be allowed to tell his story? Should a potential jury of his peers not also be clued in on what kind of person he is, to tell his story as a human being and not as the monster that he is portrayed as being?

And if this interview that has been banned were to somehow compensate for the way in which this young man has been demonised, even by his own mother in another television interview, it absolutely needs to be broadcast.

We utterly condemn what happened to PC Schembri, but everyone - everyone, whoever they are - is entitled to as fair a trial as they can be given.  In this instance, we have to say that the courts have fallen short of the mark.