Nine years to the day have now passed since journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered in cold blood via a car bombing outside her home.

Nine years of calls for justice, of arrests, of scandals, of continued exposures of government wrongdoing - and now a trial by jury with a shocking not guilty verdict, together with allegations and investigations surrounding that too.

The trial by jury against Yorgen Fenech, who was charged with complicity and conspiracy in Caruana Galizia's murder, ended in his acquittal.

We are in a position where justice for Daphne is further away than ever before.

Since the verdict was handed down, more has arisen: jurors under investigation for past social media posts, and WhatsApp messages between them mocking Caruana Galizia's family, protestors, and middleman Melvin Theuma.

These are questions for the authorities to handle and for the Court of Appeal to consider further, not for any editorial.

Yet with the outcome of the trial, the country is now in a position where the mastermind of what is the most high profile murder in Maltese history - and the murderer of a journalist - is running around scot-free.

The fight for justice must continue, but it now appears to be as steep an uphill battle as it has ever been.

This fight for justice however is not limited just to ensuring that whoever commissioned this callous murder is placed behind bars, but also in ensuring that such a case never happens again and that other journalists have the space, freedom, and safety to keep on holding power to account.

Unfortunately, the reforms recommended by the public inquiry into Daphne's murder remain practically untouched, even though five years have now passed since they were made. 

All we have is an apology from the Prime Minister to the family for the State's role in creating the sense of impunity in the country that made this murder possible in the first place.  An apology alone however serves for little: action needs to be taken to remedy the situation - action that thus far has barely been taken.

The discussion as of late concerning journalism has not been on how to protect journalists while doing their job.  It has not been about how to ensure that their - and by extension, the public's - right to information can be strengthened.  It has not been on how media literacy can be improved so that society truly understands the role of free journalism in a modern democratic country.

Instead, nine years since a journalist was assassinated, we are stuck listening to ideas on introducing warrants and licences for who can be a journalist and who cannot be - ideas which, ironically, are coming from individuals who have done all they can to blur the lines between journalism and party-paid propaganda.

Justice can take many forms, and one such form is the strengthening of the laws around the media and the strengthening of transparency and accountability.

But more than anything, it is clear that elements of society itself are not interested in ensuring that justice is done.  Their minds remained poisoned by the distasteful, disparaging, and disgraceful propaganda fed to them by their political masters.

Daphne was killed in a car bombing, but her name continues to be killed day in day out by people who continue to insult her memory.

So yes, now even nine years on from her assassination, the battle for full justice for Daphne remains a long and arduous one: perhaps longer and more arduous than ever before.

Yet as long as there are people of good will, people who are ready to fight for what is right and for what is worthy - then it's a battle that will never end in defeat, for good will triumph, sooner or later.

Until then, the fight for justice will go on.