Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1510560
THIS is all getting ridiculous, now. So ridiculous, in fact, that I scarcely even know where to begin… But let me get one thing out of the way first. It wasn't my inten- tion to write about my ongoing feud with Manuel Delia, today. (Or any other day of the week, for that matter… from now, to eternity). And there are plenty of good reasons why I shouldn't, really. Starting with the existence of other, more important things going on in the world, right now, than 'just another minor media squabble', to add to all the rest. Besides: it's now been four years since I filed my first-ever libel suit, against Manuel Delia, for a blog-post associating me with the 'conspiracy to murder Daphne Caruana Galizia' (even suggesting that I could realisti- cally 'be part of the mafia that killed her', myself). Naturally, I don't expect any of you to remember the precise details, all this time later: and strictly speaking, I shouldn't even NEED to bring them up again, at all. For though the Court of Magistrates had ruled against me, in the first instance: the Appeals Court eventually overturned that earlier ruling… which also means that: a) Manuel Delia was found guilty of libelling me, with that blogpost (though it took two years longer than it arguably should have); b) Having lost at Appeals stage, Manuel Delia had no re- maining legal avenues, to pursue the case any further. So as far as I was concerned, at the time: the matter ended (or should have ended) there. But of course… it didn't. At first, I thought Lovin' Malta had made a mistake, when they reported (in August 2022) that 'the legal battle between Manuel Delia and Raphael Vassallo con- tinues'. Yet it turned out to be correct. Manuel Delia's response to that guilty verdict, was to file a human rights case over a 'breach of his fundamental human right to freedom of expression'… against ME, please note (and not just against 'the State': which is the only entity that CAN actual- ly 'breach human rights', to be- gin with). Now: I have to admit I wasn't entirely surprised by this news; just like I wasn't really surprised, when Manuel Delia had earli- er chosen to reproduce that li- bellous blogpost in a book, no less - aptly entitled 'The TURD Siege of Malta' (MidSea Publica- tions)… while the first libel suit was still ongoing. What DID surprise me a little however, was that: a) Manuel Delia would have the nerve to open that case against me, personally: even though there is NO WAY UN- DER THE SUN, that I could con- ceivably be accused of 'breaching his fundamental human rights', simply by winning a legal battle against him, in court. (Unless, of course, the Universal Charter includes a specific 'human right', for the exclusive benefit of Ma- nuel Delia – and ONLY Manuel Delia - to simply 'lie about peo- ple, at will'…) b) In his own submissions to the Constitutional Court, Ma- nuel Delia claimed that he was NOT actually 'disagreeing' with the Appeals Court verdict; he was not contesting any of the legal grounds, upon which that verdict was reached; and he even explicitly stated that he 'AC- CEPTED' the guilty verdict, as it stood. And yet, within the same sub- mission, Delia also argued that the Appeals Court ruling (the one he had only just 'accepted', remember?) constituted a 'ba- sic violation of his fundamental right to freedom of speech'… and even that it 'has a chilling ef- fect on anyone writing an opin- ion in this country'[!] Erm… see what I mean, about how ridiculous this is all getting? And why it's so hard for me to maintain my (self-imposed) four-year hiatus, on ever writing about my own case in public? Sorry, but there's a limit to how long you can keep your trap shut, you know. For now we get to the latest twist, in this increasingly surreal saga. Yes, folks! As some if you will no doubt have guessed: Manuel Delia has once again lost his legal battle against me; once again, he is appealing against the Constitutional Court's rul- ing (delivered on 6 October this year); and once more – in own words– '[he] must now convince a higher court that he wasn't ap- pealing from an appeal (and he's not now appealing from an ap- peal from an appeal)…' But no matter. Anyone with a even half a brain will immediate- ly realise what's really going on, here. Manuel Delia simply can- not digest the fact he has now been found guilty TWICE, at law, of libel… and I would say he has good reasons for finding that verdict so hard to swallow, too. Like I hinted at earlier: by per- sisting with his libellous insinu- ations against me – even to the extent of 'preserving them for pos- terity', in bound-form - Manuel Delia has implicated all sorts of other people, in his own actions. Legally, there is nothing – ex- cept, perhaps, my own forbear- ance – stopping me from like- wise suing MidSea Publications, on the exact same grounds that I already won my case against Delia himself (i.e., the compa- ny willingly published libellous content, in my regard: exacer- bated by the fact that it knew that legal proceedings were al- ready underway)… So far, I have chosen NOT to pursue this legal avenue: for rea- sons I that may one day write about, separately [Note; with hindsight, they're actually quite amusing. Let's just say that I know, for a fact, that Mr Joseph Mizzi, of MidSea Publications, had no clue whatsoever what his latest publication even con- tained – still less, how libellous it was – before actually publish- ing it.…). Naturally, I have no intention of veering away from my earlier decision, to simply 'let the matter go'. But I have to admit I stick to that resolve with gritted teeth. (It is, after all, somewhat difficult to maintain a policy of 'non-aggres- sion'… when you keep getting repeatedly 'punched in the face.') Leaving all that aside, however: after the initial 2019 blogpost, Manuel Delia persisted in mak- ing further public allegations, in my regard… including - and I simply couldn't resist raising this one in court: though I now realise it worked against me, in the end - the claim that I was 'on the take'; and specifically, that I 'did my work for government, and was paid for it directly by government, too'. Effectively, this forced me to testify, under oath, that: I have never 'taken' so much as a sin- gle centime (not counting things like and 'University stipends', of course) from the public coffers; never once (except when I brief- ly lectured at University) have I been 'on the government's pay- roll', in any shape, manner or form; nor have I ever sat on any government boards; chaired (or been a member of) any public commissions, authorities, gov- ernment departments, and so maltatoday | SUNDAY • 29 OCTOBER 2023 10 OPINION Can Manuel Delia stop lying, just for once? Raphael Vassallo Manuel Delia