Caruana Galizias file constitutional case over removal of Old Bakery Street banner

On Friday, the widower and three sons of Daphne Caruana Galizia filed a constitutional court case against the Planning Authority over the removal of banners placed on a private property in Old Bakery Street in Valletta in March and April.

They are asking the Constitutional Court to declare the Planning Authority’s interpretation of the law and, separately, the removal of banners from a private property as unjustified interference, disproportionate and not befitting a democratic society and, as such, in violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case also calls for effective and appropriate remedies to replace the banners as they were before the violation and for the Authority pay fair compensation.

The case goes on to explain how, on 31 March, Daphne Caruana Galizia’s heirs – her husband and three sons – hung a banner on a private property in Old Bakery Street saying: “Why aren’t Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi in prison, Police Commissioner? Why isn’t your wife being investigated by the police, Joseph Muscat? Who paid for Daphne Caruana Galizia to be blown up after she asked these questions?”

A few days later, on 3 April, an order was affixed to the property for the banner to be removed due to an alleged breach of planning laws and, on 7 April, the banner was removed by persons then unknown.

At the time, the case explains, the plaintiffs were not aware that the banner had actually been removed by the authorities and they had proceeded to file a police report for stolen property.

Then, on 15 April, the plaintiffs hung another banner on the property’s façade, this one reading: “Why aren’t Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi in prison, Police Commissioner? Why isn’t your wife being investigated by the police, Joseph Muscat? Who paid for Daphne Caruana Galizia to be blown up after she asked these questions? This is our second banner our first got stolen.”

This second banner, the case filed on Friday claims, was removed without warning less than 12 hours after it was hung, “presumably by the defendants [the Planning Authority]”.

Such action, the case says, was abusive and was only aimed at denying the plaintiffs their right to freedom of expression and preventing them from delivering their message.

The case argues that it is clear from the laws regulating billboards and advertisements that the banners in question fell into neither category at law – neither in terms of dimension nor subject matter.

The plaintiffs had first taken the case to court by way of a judicial letter filed in the First Hall of the Civil Court, in its Constitutional Jurisdiction, arguing that the removal of the banners amounts to interference in their fundamental right of freedom of expression on a matter of political controversy, about a question that deals with current public policy and the right to express an opinion publicly without disproportionate interference.

In the letter, the authors requested that the Planning Authority stop hindering their expression, and that its actions breach human rights. They also said that the manner in which the enforcement notice was issued and the banner’s removal left no form of proper hearing and due process.

But the PA’s “imperial reply”, cited in the case filed on Friday was that: “Effectively, it follows that the ‘right’ you claimed is not that of freedom of expression ‘without disproportionate interference’, but the entitlement you feel you have to act arbitrarily and in flagrant violation of the laws of the country.”

The constitutional case was filed on Friday after this “disappointing” reply.

The case was filed by lawyers Therese Comodini Cachia, Jason Azzopardi and Eve Borg Costanzi on behalf of slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s husband Peter Caruana Galizia and their sons Matthew Caruana Galizia, Andrew Caruana Galizia and Paul Caruana Galizia.