In a judgement handed down on Friday, the Appeals Court overturned a First Hall sentence that had found that minister Louis Deguara had libelled his counterpart and predecessor as Health Minister, Michael Farrugia.

The case concerned an article written by Dr Deguara that appeared in In-Nazzjon on 3 July 1999.

The article was, in part, in reply to an advertisement in a local newspaper some days previously that he (Dr Deguara) was squandering public funds by spending Lm13,000 on a new car. Dr Deguara denied ordering a new car.

He then counter-attacked by claiming that before the 1998 election, a private company had approached the Health Department with an offer to carry out MRI scans at a cheap price – cheaper than it cost the government to do them itself.

Dr Deguara claimed that this private company had never received a reply nor was their letter ever found in the government’s files. He then added that he wanted full light to be shed on this and that “no Vigilance Board can be used for someone to hide behind it”. The fact remained, he added, that the country had spent Lm100,000 because the offer had not been taken up when it was made.

But while the First Hall found that Dr Farrugia had been libelled because he was the minister for health then and was thus politically responsible, the Appeals Court disagreed and said that at no point had Dr Deguara been identified personally, not even by the reference to the Labour Vigilance Board that the Appeals Court had understood as a metaphor for saying: “Let’s not play around”.

The Appeals Court was composed of Chief Justice Vincent de Gaetano, Judge Jos. D. Camilleri and Judge Jos. Filletti.