Case Study - SLAPP in Malta
This case study provides a detailed procedural history of Case 126/2017 Muscat Joseph vs Caruana Galizia Matthew, and three related cases, which are ongoing as of January 2023.
The 2017 application from Malta’s then Prime Minister accuses Matthew Caruana Galizia of breaching the Press Act by means of false and defamatory allegations contained in a post on Facebook dated 10th May 2017, and in several others that followed, in which it was stated that Joseph Muscat held an offshore company, that he took commissions from the sale of passports, that he was involved in money laundering and that he exerted pressure to stall criminal investigations.
In order to understand the impact of this case, and the other three related cases, it is important to look at the political context. During the period between 2016 –2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia began revealing information relating to the involvement of key Maltese politicians in the Panama Papers leak.
At the time of the breaking of the story, Matthew Caruana Galizia was working with as a software engineer and data journalist with the ICIJ. In 2017, he published a Facebook post linking the Panama companies to Nexia BT, an accredited agent for the Individual Investor Programme (IIP). In the post, he detailed how the Panama Companies were used to receive a cut on fees for the sale of passports.
The ex-Prime Minister filed 4 lawsuits relating to Daphne’s April 2017 blog posts regarding Egrant’s ownership and Matthew’s May 2017 Facebook post on the cash-for- passports scheme.
In September 2019, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights appealed to the then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to withdraw the defamation cases against Daphne’s heirs in order to protect media freedom in Malta and to alleviate the psychological and financial burden on her heirs. Furthermore, it was highlighted that the legal provisions allowing the passing of defamation cases to heirs send an ominous warning to all journalists in Malta and create a chilling effect on investigative journalism.