The Office of the Prime Minister has turned down a Freedom of Information request by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation for a copy of the report by a committee of experts regarding the protection of the media, the foundation said.

The Committee was set up in January 2022. The Committee had been established to come up with proposals on how to implement the recommendations of the inquiry into the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. It was also given additional tasks of reviewing a number of pieces of legislation the government had put forward. The latter part was the first phase of the committee's work.

Controversy ensued over the lack of consultation that the committee held over its proposals regarding the review of government bills, and eventually the Prime Minister agreed to send the pieces of legislation back to the committee for it to hold consultation. The committee last July presented its updated report on the first phase to the Prime Minister.

In a Facebook Post, the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation said: "We promised you an update on our FOI request for a copy of the report the Committee of Experts presented to the Prime Minister on 24th July. Here it is. Tomorrow, 26th August, would have been Daphne's 59th birthday. Maybe the OPM will decide to send us a present - the report that should have been published unprompted, the one that is supposed to tell the Government how to put right some of the wrongs that enabled Daphne's assassination."

"Yesterday, the Prime Minister's office refused our FOI request because 'the document requested is publicly available or will be published within three months.' This exclusion doesn't apply to our FOI request. According to the OPM's own terms of reference, the Prime Minister should have published the report 10 days after receiving it, but didn't," the foundation said.

"There are no grounds for refusing our FOI request, so we've filed a formal complaint. According to law, the OPM must reply within 10 days. We'll let you know when we hear from them."