Justice minister a no-show at his own media law public consultation

Justice Minister Jonathan Attard was a no-show at Wednesday’s long-awaited public consultation on the government’s bid to reform laws in the wake of the recommendations of the public inquiry into the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Media experts committee’ chairman, retired Judge Michael Mallia, who had also chaired the public inquiry, said that Minister Attard had been invited to address the public consultation, but he did not come or send a representative in his stead.

The event was mainly seen as a case of the committee going through the motions expected of it as the government appears intent on ploughing ahead with its legislation, which was a heavily watered-down version of what the committee had recommended.

Mallia bemoaned the fact that the government appeared to be ignoring the committee’s work. He recalled how the committee’s first report had been delivered to the government last June, after which nothing was heard.

It was in September that the committee learned of the government’s intention to push ahead with the legislation without any public consultation to speak of. The government’s proposed legislation reflected very few of the most important points the committee had come up with.

Now, Mallia said on Wednesday, the committee was expected to undertake a public consultation.

“We were told to consult,” Mallia told those gathered for the public consultation, with an attendance of not more than 50 people, and very few journalists.

“Where it [the exercise] will go from here, I cannot say.”

The hall of the University’s Valletta Campus was mainly filled with students who were recognised by committee member, university lecturer Carmen Sammut – a handful of academics and an even smaller handful of journalists, which was perhaps symptomatic of the weight journalists are giving the committee’s work – overshadowed as it is by the government’s machinations.

It was a drab affair on Wednesday morning, with working representatives of the Maltese press corps few and far between. Nor was there a single representative of the government. Opposition MPs Karol Aquilina and Graham Bencini were present.

“Instead of a government that listens, we have a government that even ignores a ‘Committee of Experts’ that it set up itself,” they said in a statement after the lacklustre event that came up with no solutions or visible way forward – other than the government now having ticked the public consultation box so it can presumably now proceed with pushing the legislation through the House.

The public consultation was addressed, by video link, by European Federation of Journalists General Secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez, who took the government to task over its ham-fisted and hurried handling of the delicate legislation.

He described the government’s “wait and see attitude” toward the legislation, which was still in the making so many years after the assassination of Caruana Galizia, as “incredible”.

He recalled how he and representatives of other international press freedom NGOs met with Prime Minister Robert Abela a year and a half ago, who had promised action, but now some 18 months down the road, Gutiérrez said he is “amazed by the government’s lack of protectiveness”.

He suggested there may be “a clear and deliberate attempt” on the part of the government “not to legislate to strengthen the role of journalists as watchdogs protecting the citizens.”

He referred to the fact that, at present, the Council of Europe’s Platform for the Safety of Journalists currently has 15 alerts about Malta, of which the government is so far addressing just seven, or less than half.

He observed how Malta was one of the worst performers when it comes to the area of media pluralism and rates along the same lines as Turkey, Poland and Hungary, according to an academic study commissioned by the European Commission.

“Democracy in Malta,” he remarked, “is in danger”.