The authoritarian president of ex-Soviet Tajikistan has approved a proposal to decriminalise libel. Emomali Rakhmon’s office said Wednesday that the offence will now be downgraded to a civil violation.

Meanwhile, in Malta, journalists can still be charged in court for criminal libel, which, more often than not, is instituted by politicians as a form of ‘gagging’ on journalists.

Tajikistan is a former Soviet Bloc country which gained independence in 1991 and has since become an autocratic nation – however, the signs are that things are slowly improving.

Malta has been a Republic since 1974, but many will argue that it has only been a true democracy since 1987, when the PN won a landslide victory against the MLP which was, at the time, led by Mintoff’s anointed leader Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.

Overnight, the change was tangible. The culture of fear and oppression went out of the window, but still – even since 1987, the law concerning criminal libel has been in practice – something with which even this publishing house has had experience in the past.

Criminal libel does exist in other countries, but it is a dead-letter law – it is no longer enforced and no politician in, for example France, would dare to institute proceedings against an independent journalist.

In a recent parliamentary committee for the consolidation of laws meeting, two MPs – Franco Debono from the Nationalist Party and Jose Herrera from the Labour Party –agreed that criminal libel should be removed in a review of libel laws.

The committee chairman, Dr Debono, and Dr Herrera said that freedom of expression was paramount and that the law needed to be updated to reflect this. PN MP Francis Zammit Dimech said that he agreed in principle, but said that provisions needed to be made where financial compensation is not safeguarded in such instances under the Civil Code.

Dr Debono said that while he felt criminal libel should be removed, compensation in the civil courts should be increased – especially in view of the largely unregulated internet sphere – where considerable damage could be caused to a person’s reputation.

He also said he felt that the law on rights of reply should be updated, increasing the penalties when such right is not given by publishing houses and other media. Again, this should be in the civil courts’ jurisdiction, he said.

Dr Herrera said that libel cases should all be heard before a panel of judges, due to their sensitivity. He also said that they should be heard earlier and quicker, in order to limit any damages caused.

Dr Zammit Dimech agreed that criminal libel laws were out of date. But, he said, loopholes in the civil law section needed to be addressed, especially when the injured party would have no recourse to compensation. He suggested leaving criminal law as a possibility of recourse in this regard.

The MPs also referred to a 1986 European Court of Human Rights ruling which stipulates that politicians and anyone in public life are to expect that limits of acceptable criticism are higher for them than private citizens.

While this publishing house calls for the removal of criminal libel, it also calls for a thorough review of the way parliament functions in terms of MPs’ privilege when speaking under protection. All too often, MPs have launched virulent attacks on the free press, only to then turn round and file for criminal libel – prosecuted by the state and at no expense, while they are immune to any form of redress due to the way parliament functions. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, or is this a very evident case of two weights and two very different measures?