Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/899902
maltatoday SUNDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2017 Interview 14 By Raphael Vassallo Commissioner Muižnieks: in your press release, you mention that your "long-planned visit took place in the direct aftermath of the assassination of the Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia." As you are aware, that assassination also sparked a local (and international) discussion on the state of the rule of law in Malta. Insofar as it touches on your human rights remit... what, on the basis of your own local observations and discussions, is the state of health of Malta's legal infrastructure? Do you share the view, echoed in the international press, that there are serious structural and institutional deficiencies? There are rule of law aspects to it: for example, to what extent do you have an independent inves- tigation going on? I was told that not only are the Maltese investiga- tive authorities dealing with this, but you also have Scotland Yard, Europol, the FBI, the Dutch and so on, to dispel any doubts that the authorities were not taking this seriously. That was reassuring. But when I asked journalists and media experts whether this was an exceptional case, and whether journalists were afraid to do their job... most media outlets told me they were afraid 10 years ago, when rightwing extremists would threaten them when they wrote about migration. Now, they're more afraid of lawsuits. They're not afraid of being killed: they're afraid of being sued, especially in foreign jurisdictions, if they touch upon sensitive business topics. In a sense, those concerns are related to the Caruana Galizia murder. Pilatus Bank, for instance, sued Maltese journalists in the USA on the basis of allegations raised on Daphne's blog. Also, Daphne herself was targeted by garnishee orders: a threat also levelled at this newspaper for earlier, unrelated investigative stories... This raises the issue of defama- tion. After this murder, I decided to look at what was being said about the media situation before. There were only two things that really stood out: one, that you have political parties that own me- dia, which is quite unusual in the broader European context. How- ever, I was told by media experts that they keep tabs on each other, and it's only to maintain their core constituencies. They're not encroaching on other areas. But the other thing that stood out was defamation. You have a very high number of defamation cases, for such a small country. I met certain journalists who had 50,60,70 cases against them... Daphne Caruana Galizia had 42 pending at the time of her death... ... that's a huge number. And when I heard that in the draft me- dia law there is a maximum pen- alty of 20,000 euros for civil libel, I thought that was very high. I urged the authorities to rethink that, and bring it down. They seemed to be receptive to that. One good thing that can come of this, despite the tragedy of the event, is that now everyone's looking very closely at the new media law. Hopefully, you'll come up with a world-class media law as a result of this trag- edy. I also hope that this may lead to a discussion on professional sol- idarity. When I gathered together editors from newspapers, they clearly did not get along very well. But they all have interests in com- mon: you all want to be safe from physical threats, you all need ac- cess to information to do your job well, you all don't want to be sub- ject to huge defamation charges or garnishee orders, and so on... you have things in common, regardless of your very different perspectives. So I'm hoping this discussion will continue and deepen. Though overshadowed by the ongoing criminal investigation, this visit was primarily concerned with human rights relating to migration and integration. In particular, you pointed out that: "Integration should not be optional; every migrant should have the possibility to benefit from this strategy." You also encouraged the authorities to 'facilitate access to citizenship to long-term residents'. Both those statements imply that the opposite is actually happening. Is that your view? In order to integrate, in order for the individual to make any invest- 'Malta stands Despite the tragedy of the event, now everyone's looking very closely at the new media law. Hopefully, you'll come up with a world-class media law as a result of this tragedy MEDIA LAW PHOTOGRAPHY BYJAMES BIANCHI