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Newspaper post maltatoday today today SUNDAY • 13 MAY 2018 • ISSUE 966 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY 'I just wanted to help' A bigger font size to make your reading experience more enjoyable, and a new pull-out section for your weekly brief on the arts, television, personalities, and money matters €1.95 MATTHEW VELLA GOVERNMENT intends giving owners of rent-controlled proper- ties the right to revise rents up- wards to a maximum amount of 2% of the freehold value of the dwell- ing, as court actions mount against the unconstitutionality of the 1979 Housing Decontrol Ordinance. Tenants of rent-controlled prop- erties enjoy low rents thanks to the 1979 law that converted temporary leases into permanent rental con- tracts. But judgements from the Euro- pean Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and in the Maltese courts have left the government with no choice but to amend the laws – or having to face compen- sation claims and damages in both national and European courts, while tenants face the threat of eviction. Under the new legal amendments, property owners will be entitled to ask the Rent Regulation Board to revise the rent to an amount not exceeding 2% of the freehold value of the dwelling, and to include new conditions in the lease. The rent will then be revised every six years. Tenants and owners not in full- time gainful employment will be entitled to legal aid. PAGE 2 7 Direct FIMBank Direct is a secure digital banking platform with a variety of services catering for both personal and corporate banking customers. This platform is an integrated solution which is secure, versatile and easily accessible. Discover more by visiting www.fimbank.com/direct FIMBank p.l.c. is a licensed credit institution regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority and is listed on the Malta Stock Exchange. 2132 2102 helpdesk@fimbank.com www.fimbank.com Secure High Level Protection Technology Versatile Manage your Accounts & Effect Payments with Ease Accessible Access your account with no need for an Internet Key Multi-currency Multiple Options in Major Currencies SURVEY PAGES 10-11 Maltese IS the spoken language of choice! Controlled rents to rise according to property value Caruana Galizia inquiry magistrate touted for judge in new additions MALTESE is overwhelm- ingly the language of choice at home and be- tween friends but when reading books and post- ing on Facebook, English prevails, a MaltaToday survey on bilingualism found. The strong prevalence of spoken Maltese cuts across all regions, age groups and political in- clinations. However, a subtle politi- cal divide reveals more Labour voters inclined towards Maltese than Nationalist voters. The survey comes on the back of a heated de- bate between academics on government proposals to introduce the teaching of Maltese "as a foreign language". Gozo is a bulwark for spoken Maltese with 91.3% saying it was the most frequently used language at home. Un- surprisingly, the North- ern Harbour region host- ing towns like Sliema and St Julian's has the lowest prevalence of spoken Maltese at home, albeit still a very high percent- age (72%). Indeed, a quarter of people in this region say they speak both Maltese and English at home, the highest across all the ter- ritory. DUN KARM PSAILA (C) DOI ILLUSTRATION MT (We've got the numbers) Gynaecologist Mark Sant on why he joined the campaign to see embryo freezing legislated PAGES 16-17 | SUNDAY • 13 MAY 2018 maltatoday 18 maltatoday Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address 14 May, 2008 The Armed Forces of Malta is insisting that its garage in Gozo, packed with up to five tons of high explosives, is "relatively safe" despite internal memos warning of an impending catastrophe. MaltaToday revealed last Sunday how the authorities have been sitting on an illegal explosives store right next to the AFM shooting range in Nadur, Gozo, for a full 10 years since the office of the prime minister and the army were warned of the danger. In its bid to cover up the extent of the hazard, the AFM is now claiming that "the storage and issue of explosives from Qor- tin Base is a practical and relatively safe operation", but the official documents at the prime minister's office – seen by this newspaper and which the army is declin- ing to release – show otherwise. According to a memo sent by Col. A. Grech on 18 September 1998, "when the store was taken into use (an ex-garage), the regulations appertaining to the storage of explosives were, for unknown reasons, not taken into consideration. These make it unlawful to store explosives at the safe distance of less than 270m from public traffic routes and 380m from a light struc- ture." Yesterday, an AFM spokesman con- firmed the site is also used for firing prac- tice, in clear breach of instructions given 10 years ago by then prime minister Alfred Sant's defence advisor, Martin Scicluna. "The only type of military training be- ing conducted at the AFM's Qortin Base is pistol firing," the army spokesman said. "Firing practice is conducted under the supervision of AFM Firing-Point Offic- ers, and the live-firing is conducted under strict Range Practice Regulations." Yet Scicluna warned 10 years ago: "In our judgement, the safety aspect must be dealt with immediately. With small arms training and the use of pyrotechnics tak- ing place in the area there is a risk which is not a cceptable and should not be taken. … the present location, slap in the middle of the living accommodation area, is unsafe and unacceptable." .... Asked to publish the relevant docu- ments and correspondence in line with government's commitment towards free- dom of information, the AFM declined to reply. MaltaToday 10 years ago Quote of the Week A SLAPP action too far MALTA is under unprecedented international press scrutiny following last October's murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia; and inevitably, part of this scrutiny has focused on press freedoms. While some of this criticism may have been exaggerated, there can be no denying that Mal- tese journalism is indeed under threat in some respects. In particular, Maltese media houses are still vulnerable to SLAPP proceedings: i.e., "strategic lawsuit against public participation", intended to censor, intimidate, and silence crit- ics by burdening them with the disproportionate cost of a legal defence until they abandon their criticism. In its defence, government has pointed to- wards the recently enacted media law: which, although a huge step forward for press freedoms in many ways, does not necessarily address all the problems concerned. MaltaToday is cur- rently facing a legal threat of this nature over an article which exposed the high concentration of companies linked to politically exposed persons from Azerbaijan – a country often criticised for alleged human rights abuses and violations of the rule of law – some of which are operating accounts at Pilatus Bank which has now passed under controllership since the arrest of its chair- man and owner in the United States on fraud and money laundering charges. The legal threat came from British law firm Mishcon de Reya, on behal f of Robert Baker: one of the directors of a French company whose ultimate beneficial owners are Tale and Nijat Heydarov, sons of the all-powerful Azerbaijani minister for emergency situations, Kamaladdin Heydarov Although the article specified that there was no suggestion of wrongdoing, or that those mentioned had acted illegally, offence was taken at the use of a single word – 'flagged' – which the law firm claims was aimed at linking Baker to suspicious transactions. Even at a glance, two facts emerge pains- takingly clear: one, the threat is of a highly vexatious nature, as the word 'flagged' implies nothing of the kind (it merely means that the Daphne Project had drawn attention to Baker's connections with the Azerbaijani ruling elite). Two, the information contained in the article is self-evidently of a public interest nature, and therefore clearly constitutes 'fair comment'. Indeed, it would be a failing on the part of the press not to report such information, given the revelations concerning Pilatus Bank, and espe- cially the broader context of the Panama Papers – which revolved around the central premise of the public's right to know about the movement of global wealth, especially where governments are concerned. It, therefore, becomes inescapable that the intention behind such legal threats is not neces- sarily to successfully sue this newspaper in a for- eign court – because the case itself doesn't have a leg to stand on – but to maximise the expense involved in legal defence, in the hope that Mal- taToday would cave into the demands. As such, it is a case of a SLAPP threat being taken too far. But it is not an isolated incident. British law firms have a reputation for muscling in on jour- nalists and silencing critics with the threat of ruinous court action. SLAPPs are being used by financial elites and tax pirates to condition Maltese journalism: MaltaToday has in the past been threatened with UK court action by a Lebanese energy giant, a British biotech entre- preneur, and more recently, a UK asset company with interests in football and shipping. Unfortunately, however, Maltese law is so far toothless when it comes to defending local me- dia from this form of censorship. Government recently voted down an Opposition anti-SLAPP amendment to the media bill, on the grounds that it had doubts about its practicability in the context of European law. This was at best short- sighted: for even if the amendment, as proposed, may have been problematic, government should still have discussed ways to iron out the legal issues and achieve the same objective. Certainly, the main aspect of the amendment could have been retained. The discarded amend- ment proposed that any judgement of any court outside Malta on alleged defamation, handed down against Maltese residents, would have been considered "contrary to the public policy or to the internal public law of Malta" when the defendant would not have defended the case on its merits in the foreign court. It also proposed that proceedings in respect of any publication, made by a person or entity normally resident or domiciled in or operat- ing within Malta, shall be brought in a Maltese court and that these courts will have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine such pro- ceedings "irrespective of whether the publica- tion in question is hosted or otherwise broad- cast from servers located outside Malta". There are good reasons to pursue this aim through local legislation. If the Maltese courts uphold decisions delivered in a UK court on defamation actions, the consequences for the free press and Maltese democracy would be disastrous. Government has an obligation to defend the free press. It must send a clear message that all SLAPP actions emanating from EU courts are against Maltese public policy; otherwise, the future of journalism in Malta will be at risk. Editorial "H&P just wanted to know if it was ok with the government to proceed with a lawsuit because it has public and politi- cal implications." Henley chairman Christian Kalin tells MEPs of his relationship with Jo- seph Muscat and Keith Schembri, with reference to a SLAPP action against Daphne Caruana Galizia If the Maltese courts uphold decisions delivered in a UK court on defamation actions, the consequences for the free press and Maltese democracy would be disastrous | SUNDAY • 13 MAY 2018 maltatoday 3 THE Q&A "My most treasured possession is my grandmother's engagement ring" maltatoday Q&A CHRISTABELLE THIS WEEK The Crucible FILM I Kill Giants ARTS The street photography of Vincent Kraft INSIDE • LISTINGS • TELEVISION • LAW & MONEY• CLASSIFIEDS 2 The all new pull-out section MALTATODAY CHANGES... (just a little bit) YOUR FIRST READ AND CLICK OF THE DAY WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT