Court clears Prime Minister of making false statements about Nationalist MP

The Court of Magistrates has cleared Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of making false and defamatory statements about PN MP Anthony Bezzina when he said, during a public meeting, that Bezzina had forced government workers to sign a false declaration.

Bezzina sued Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for libel in 2015, following a speech given by the prime minister at the Żurrieq Labour Party club, in which he alleged that an inquiry had uncovered how Bezzina had coerced employees of the Public Works Department into signing a declaration stating that they had not been used to carry out works inside the Żurrieq PN club during their work hours, in 2012.

Bezzina had been employed as an architect by the Public Works Department at the time and was president of the PN’s sectional committee in Żurrieq. It emerged that the PN club in the locality needed painting ahead of the 2012 local council elections and Bezzina had asked the foreman of his department to find him some workers who would be prepared to do the necessary works after hours. The works were carried out using materials he had provided and took three afternoons to complete.

The interior decorators had refused payment.

But after Maltese-language paper Kulhadd ran a story claiming that the works had been carried out during work hours, Bezzina was asked to provide an explanation. He had summoned the three workmen to his office to sign a declaration that they had completed the works after their work hours.

The workers’ foreman had asked them to sign a declaration stating that they had not been carrying out the works on government time, but one was reluctant to do so as it stated that they had gone there of their own free will, when in fact, they had been asked to go. He was eventually convinced to go.

Under cross-examination, one of the workmen refused to make a declaration under oath, saying he had only signed it after being pushed into doing so. The other men gave a similar version of events.

After they signed the declaration, two of the workers had gone to make an affidavit in which they denied going voluntarily and that they had acted on the orders of their foreman. A board of inquiry had noted that the men were fearful of their superiors and had felt constrained to sign the declaration. One of the men had gone to sign the declaration right after attending his mother’s funeral, noted the board, which eventually recommended that clear work hours be laid out and assertiveness training be given to vulnerable workers.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale, in his decision, noted that the prime minister was dutybound to bring questionable behaviour of elected officials to light. Bezzina was a person elected to represent the interests of the people and had abused his position to force workers to do private work for free as well as sign documents denying this.

Therefore there was nothing defamatory in the article, said the magistrate, dismissing the suit.

In a statement, Bezzina said that he would take all the time permitted by law to consider whether to appeal the judgment.

On its part, the Labour Party put the onus on PN leader Adrian Delia, saying that he must now decide what to do with someone who abused his public position.