Court drops Joseph Muscat’s libel suit following three no-shows

A libel suit filed by disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat against lawyer Christian Grima was officially rejected by the court earlier today following Muscat’s failure to appear, on three consecutive occasions, at the proceedings he instituted.

Muscat had filed a libel case in reaction to a Facebook post by Grima published on 2 May sharing a clip from a video interview of Michelle Muscat, Joseph Muscat’s wife, in which she had infamously stated that she felt even more injured by Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination than the late journalist’s own family due to the “lies” Caruana Galizia had written about her.

This is the third time Muscat failed to appear for a libel case he filed. Three hours after the sitting, Muscat took to Facebook to state that his lawyer is currently abroad and that, “because of an oversight”, he and his lawyer could not be present at the sitting, claiming that it was not his intent to fail to show up, blaming it instead on Grima’s decision to ask for the case to be dropped.

Bizarrely, Muscat’s post was taken down just a few minutes later, without explanation (as seen below). About two hours later, a longer version of the post was uploaded.

https://www.facebook.com/josephmuscatdotcom/posts/460155422134723

https://www.facebook.com/josephmuscatdotcom/posts/460276695455929

“What happened today is a reflection of the state the country is in. It was a total waste of my time and a bullying tactic meant to get people to shut up and then not being able to steer the ship into the harbour, at the end of the day,” Grima said when reached for comment after the court’s decision.

“This was his case, he instituted the action – he didn’t appear in three sittings. I was notified to appear today for the first time, so I appeared, as was my duty. That’s basically it; I wasted three hours of my life here as well preparing a suit which I was willing to defend and he never turned up,” he added.

Muscat’s resignation at the end of 2019 had come hot on the heels of revelations related to his former chief of staff Keith Schembri and former energy minister Konrad Mizzi, who Muscat had defended and retained in government until their business links with Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech rendered their position untenable.

In an extensive public inquiry, which was only forced through because of sustained international pressure given the resistance shown by Muscat’s government, the public inquiry board had determined that the State was responsible for facilitating the journalist’s assassination through the fostering of a climate of impunity and state-wide corruption involving government and big business.