Constitution can protect freedom of speech from threats by foreign companies

Listing the Media and Defamation Act draft presented earlier this year, the difference between the rights of bloggers and journalists rights, and the need for anti-SLAMM legislation, amongst others, IT Lawyer and University of Malta lecturer Antonio Ghio articulated his concern as to whether Malta’s media laws will stifle empowerment which technology brings about.

Ghio was speaking at a conference yesterday organised by MEP Roberta Metsola regarding the fourth estate, citizen journalism and security challenges in Malta.

‘Media and Defamation Act would have put is in par with North Korea’

“No right is absolute and there is always this constant balancing act between our rights to free speech, security of the state, libel, freedom of information and so on,” he said.

“What we have realised in the past few years is that there is no new way in which our present legislator is trying to seek this balance, and the best example of this is with the Media and Defamation Act earlier this year,” he said. “We saw the first draft, which would have put us at par with media laws in Russia, China and North Korea, by basically giving power to the state to know who is participating in this online discussion.

“This unfortunate state of affairs reflects our society and surely reflects the inability of our electoral representatives to understand this technology and this revolution.”

He went on to say that the new draft published this week removes website registration and brings Malta closer to the UK model. “It does not mean the UK model is free and perfect,” he said, adding that, “the timing of this discussion is sad, after what we experienced a few weeks ago.”

‘Constitution should protect us from SLAPP situations’

Ghio also referred to what is known as SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation). These are lawsuits that are indented to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense.

Refering to the recent legal action taken by Pilatus Bank in the USA on Maltese media houses, the lawyer said “it was very sad to see if some, if not all, of media houses looking at the expensive letterhead, bowing their head and saying yes.”

He stated that such actions are “a threat to our freedom of speech, irrespective of what some funny laws in single states in the US dictate.”

“Last week a request was made to the EU commission to look at the phenomenon of SLAPP on a European level, but everything, in my opinion, boils down to our digital rights and the application of these rights, even in SLAPP situations.” He likened the concept to our constitution not recognising the death penalty. “I think we should consider a situation where our constitution, as a piece of legislation can protect us, also recognises that freedom of speech applies offline and online, and also to legal persons.

“It is a difficult balancing act, and technology is changing every day,” he said, “laws that apply to citizen journalists also apply to keyboard warriors. Technology is empowering us , let us hope that legislators do not stifle that empowerment.”

Situation ‘reflects inability to recognize importance of human rights in digital context’

Earlier, Ghio explained that laws are “trailing behind technology”, and situations such as the Media and Defamation act “reflects our inability as a country to take the lead and recognise the importance of the application of human rights in a digital context.”

He mentioned the difference in rights which one has a blogger as opposed to a journalist. Speaking about Daphne Caruana Galizia, Ghio said, “some people failed to recognize her journalistic capacity and only referred to her as a blogger and therefore had no rights attached to that, as opposed to being a journalist with an accredited press card from the state.”

He went on to explain that in 2012, the Government, which was run by the Nationalist administration, had presented a “white paper of certain digital rights.”

“This never saw the light of day, was never discussed or debated in parliament, and I dearly hope the the new parliament will receive a refreshed bill of this sort,” he said.