Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the lack of ethics shown by MaltaToday on numerous occasions. Then last week, that same newspaper published an article which serves only to illustrate the point I made.

That newspaper – which already has a tainted image – decided to live up to its reputation and “expose” a magistrate. This is beyond scandalous! This is an attack, pure and simple, on the institutions of the country. It is nothing short of abuse of the freedom of the press. What bewilders me is the sombre silence that has accompanied it.

I do not think it is necessary to enter into the merits of the case. What is pertinent is that the magistrate appeared in front of the Commission for the Administration of Justice and that the Commission forbade the publication of its decision.

Despite the crystal-clear forbidding, MaltaToday, in its infinite wisdom, decided it knows better than the Commission and went ahead gleefully to publish the decision. It benefits us to remember that on the Commission sit members of the judiciary, representatives of the Executive, etc. In other words, this is not a club where idle people meet to share idle talk. This is one of the most important institutions of the country, and its members are among the more experienced in the legal profession. Their decision to forbid the publication of the decision was therefore not a foolish decision taken rashly – there were undoubtedly serious reasons behind it.

But then MaltaToday rushes in where angels fear to tread. MaltaToday put aside the decision of the Commission because it thinks that the public should know! But who exactly is at the helm of this silly newspaper? What understanding do they have of the Constitution, of how the law and the legal system work, of the why and wherefore certain decisions are best kept outside public knowledge? Don’t they intuit the prudence which inspired the Commission to forbid the publication of the decision? MaltaToday wrote, “In the decision taken by the Commission for the Administration of Justice, the judiciary’s watchdog decreed that its admonition should not be published. But MaltaToday, which has seen details of the decision, has decided such a reprimand is in the public’s interest to know.” On what basis does MaltaToday think it knows better than the Commission? Under what kind of delusions do they labour?

If the law allows the Commission the discretion to forbid publication, there must be a good reason. If the Commission employs the discretion the law grants it and forbids publication, there must be a good reason too. That MaltaToday thinks that its own judgment is superior to that of the Commission for the Administration of Justice betrays two things. One, a sense of entitlement completely detached from reality. Two, an utter lack of understanding of how the State works and why it works that way. MaltaToday’s silliness in defying the Commission’s decision shows nothing but bravado.

Bravado also implies “intimidation”. This is the reason why I contend that MaltaToday’s silly decision to defy the Commission amounts to an attack on the institutions of the State.

Granted, few people care about the State in this little Republic of ours. The umbilical cord with the colonial mindset has never been really severed – many in Malta today still think that the State belongs to some foreign power distant from Malta, not to the Maltese people. MaltaToday rides this wave of political ignorance – political in the philosophical not partisan sense. In the partisan sense, it rides another wave, based on certain arrangements. Those in the know need no more details; for the others, the details required are so many that neither this column nor this entire newspaper would suffice.

The point I want to make is that MaltaToday’s decision to publish, despite the Commission’s forbidding, constitutes – whether knowingly or unknowingly – an attack on one of the most important institutions of the country: the judiciary.

I shall enumerate a few reasons why.

First of all, the magistrate concerned cannot defend himself in the media. If the newspaper report gave a particular slant to the story which does not necessarily reflect the truth, the magistrate cannot respond and the public will never know. So the public will only know what MaltaToday wants it to know! The basic principle of justice that both parties should be heard, has been pulverised by MaltaToday’s bravado. The newspaper has kicked and punched hard, and the magistrate can only take. This is unacceptable. Why should any member of the judiciary be subjected to such treatment by the supposed fourth organ of the State – the media? The media is afforded ample freedom to carry out its duties, not to abuse of it and intimidate the judiciary. The media is permitted a whole host of privileges to serve as watchdog on the three organs of the State on behalf of the public. A watchdog is not a war dog.

Secondly, there will always be leaks. God knows how many leaks and tips newsrooms receive on a daily basis. And yet, most editors exercise judiciousness and, having a proper understanding of the bigger picture, overcome the temptation and refrain from making public details that score points in the here and now but damage democracy’s entire edifice in the long run. Indeed, the public need not know a newsroom’s opinion about everything. Much of this gossipy news would not in reality represent facts – it would only be the newsroom’s opinion on a particular happening. There is a fine line between newsworthiness and rubbish which a newsroom should be aware of and never knowingly overstep. MaltaToday are aware of this line, but they knowingly overstep it, with much gusto and fanfare to boot. In a way, they are like irresponsible adolescents.

That MaltaToday couldn’t restrain itself and understand that certain “news” is not news, is a clear sign that certain people should not occupy the post they’re occupying. Self-censorship is necessary. Not because of fear or favour, but because it is necessary to filter the filth out. Freedom of the press is like a canal. For the stream to remain clean, you have to refrain from throwing rubbish into the water and to filter all the effluents that flow into the canal. Otherwise, the potable water of freedom of expression becomes the murky sewage of freedom of excretion.

Unlike other Maltese newspapers, MaltaToday seems unable to weigh the pros and cons of its decisions to publish or not to publish. They seem unaware of the bigger picture, their only aim being to score points or indulge in some blind vendetta at the behest of the people at the helm. Lou Bondì had perspicaciously called MaltaToday, “a public vehicle for private envy”, and Daphne Caruana Galizia had echoed that observation. I think they were both very close to the truth.

This leads me to my third consideration, namely how the judiciary would have reacted to MaltaToday defying the Commission for the Administration of Justice’s forbidding, and publishing the Commission’s decision come what may.

It is clear that after this incident, neither MaltaToday nor people associated with it will appear before the magistrate involved, as they would invoke partiality and so on. Whether MaltaToday intended this is a consequence of the publication, we shall never know. But nobody can eradicate speculation, and speculation is pernicious to the very ethos and bases of the State’s judicial organ.

Furthermore, it is reasonable to presume that other members of the judiciary will be worried or alarmed by the flagrant disregard for the implications and consequences of publishing such a decision. We will never know the truth, because the judiciary cannot engage in public debate, but I think it is reasonable to make this presumption. Similarly, the members of the Commission for the Administration of Justice will feel uneasy. If its decisions are published, despite its forbidding such publication, how can the Commission work serenely? It is now reasonable to expect the members of the Commission, or at least some of them, to be extremely careful as to what they say or decide, even behind closed doors, because the rules have been broken and an ugly precedent set. The question now is: will the breaking of the rules go unpunished?

The scandal is that the decision of MaltaToday to publish despite the Commission’s express forbidding is, in a way, a threat to the judiciary, the only State organ on which impartiality is imposed as it is crucial for the orderly functioning of society. MaltaToday’s decision is a sort of blackmail – I am sure this is not the first time the judiciary has felt blackmailed by MaltaToday. The question now is: will the State react or will it turn a blind eye and let MaltaToday get away with murder?

MaltaToday is a newspaper that respects no bounds. For instance, quite a number of years ago, they invented a story about an individual and faxed him questions about the invented story. The individual concerned replied that the story was nothing but an invention, and that if they went ahead and published it, he would sue them. At the time criminal libel was still on the books, so he warned them he would sue criminally. So they didn’t publish the news – meaning that they could not prove their invention. But then, many years later, during legal proceedings lodged by a relative of that individual against them on something completely unrelated, they published a news item stating that, years before, the individual had threatened legal action if they published the story they had invented!

The subterfuge can be efficacious. The intelligent reader will understand that there is no truth in the story, otherwise they would have published the story immediately instead of waiting for so many years and then hiding behind the libel threat. The less intelligent reader (and the average reader of MaltaToday is less intelligent than the average reader of other English-language newspapers – just read the comments posted beneath MaltaToday articles in general) would get confused and take the story at face value, getting hold of the wrong end of the stick.

MaltaToday is a rogue newspaper. One would expect the journalists’ associations to rebuke and condemn them for attacking the judiciary. In other countries, rogue journalists are expelled from the profession. In the Gżira Taparsi, as Oliver Friggieri called Malta, everybody can do whatever they like, because of a hillbilly understanding of the concept of liberalism. Liberalism is understood as free-for-all anything-goes “whore-in-a-bacchanal” way of doing things.

If MaltaToday succeeds in getting away with murder, then we shall be fully justified to support a new constitutional document the first article of which would read, “Malta is a taparsi-democratic republic founded on impunity and on the abuse of the freedom of the press”.

My Personal Library (64)

Robert Thake’s A Publishing History of a Prohibited Best-Seller: The Abbé de Vertot and his Histoire de Malte, published three years ago in the United States, is a highly intriguing book. It’s a book about a book called Histoire de Malte, in reality a history of the Order of St. John which took more than ten years to finish and publish, with the road leading to its publication a long and winding one. But similarly fascinating was the road that led to its inclusion on the list of prohibited books. Dr Thake’s account is a must-read: the style is flowing, the research top-notch, the material unexpectedly absorbing.

What struck me most is the Abbé’s public protestation that the publishers had tampered with his text. This part of the plot captured my attention more than anything else. There was a time when the author lost all authority on the text once the publishing deal was sealed. There must be some arcane relationship between the words auctor and auctoritas.