Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1208901
ship in the case of the Carnival float. I am aware that Minister Herrera denies it was a case of censorship; but by any other name, they censored the chance this man had of saying what he wanted to say. Now: I do not agree with cen- sorship, in this or any other case. Wearing my academic's hat: I have to admit that I was hop- ing he would not be censored, also so that the Church – and anyone else who felt offended by that float – would have had the opportunity to take the case to court. In this way, we would have tested the system, to see exactly how far it can go to de- fend people who feel offended by satire. In this case, however, the com- plaint was not so much that the float was 'offensive'… but that it was 'libellous'. The Europe- an Court of Human Rights has already ruled that freedom of expression includes the right to offend… but can it also be used to justify lying about others? I'm a satirist myself, so let me come to this from my own per- spective. For starters, satire not only has the right to offend… but an obligation. There is no such thing as 'mild satire'. Satire has to be brutal. If it isn't brutal, it's no good: because the whole point of satire is to ridicule… to make fun of something. If no- body is offended, then you can't even talk about it as 'satire' at all. Nonetheless, satire still has to ultimately be based on reality. If am to satirise someone, it has to be on the basis of something that person said, did, or is. I can't base my satire on something I simply invented about that per- son myself. That wouldn't be satire; that would be slander, to the highest degree. But the point is… can you stop anyone from lying about you? No, because people have the freedom to speak in public; and to stop them from lying, you would also have to stop them from speaking. This doesn't mean there is no protection from slander, however. I am free to lie about others; but others would then have the option to take me to court. This is why the academic side of me was furious that this wasn't allowed to happen in the Carnival float case. The float de- signer was not allowed to get his message across… and the arch- bishop was also denied the op- portunity to seek redress from the law-courts. Which brings us back to square one… Was it really libellous, though? The designer denied that his intention was to hold the arch- bishop personally responsible for the Dar San Guzepp case… The problem with visual sat- ire – and a Carnival float is very much like a cartoon, in this sense – is that it is not articu- late. There is no room for detail. If you write a 1,000-word arti- cle, you have every chance in the world to explain what you mean from 20 different angles. With visual satire, you can't. Visual satire has to be direct. The more elements you add, the greater the likelihood that the original point of the satire would be lost. In this case, what the designer was trying to do was to make sev- en or more different points, in one visual comment. Of course, the chances are that his actu- al intentions were going to be misunderstood. He tried to talk about too much: sperm-banks, paedophilia, IVF, gay rights… and besides, by juxtaposing the image of the archbishop onto a backdrop suggesting paedophil- ia, he was visually depicting the archbishop as a paedophile. Re- gardless of his actual intentions, that is how it was going to be interpreted. In fact, his own intentions are not even relevant; what counts is not what you mean to say, but how you convey the meaning… Doesn't this add up to a justifi- cation of censorship, however? No. However flawed the mes- sage, he should still have been allowed to put it across; and if people were offended, they could have sued for libel. But this brings me to another issue: the legal system is crap, quite frankly. I personally would nev- er sue anyone for libel, unless my reputation was so utterly torn to shreds that I felt I had no other option. But it would have to be a last resort; because the system, as it stands, is a time-waster… a money-pit… and the worst part of it is that cases get deferred, time and again, often without the actors even being informed. So in the end: yes, we have freedom of expression; yes, we can say whatever we want; and yes, we have the legal option to take people to court for what they say, if we feel libelled. But in practice, it doesn't really work… because the prospect of suing for libel is too daunting… too off-putting, for most people. Ultimately, the laws of the land should give people the right of redress… but to do that, the laws of the land also have to function properly and efficiently. And as things stand today, the legal sys- tem is simply too inefficient to provide an adequate remedy. 9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 FEBRUARY 2020 INTERVIEW Morality should never determine the limit of free speech. Nonetheless, ethical lines do exist: and the culture of a country will often determine where they are drawn