If you haven’t read this yet, please do…

Times of Malta journalist acted in good faith when reporting on bigamy court case

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case Aquilina and Others v. Malta (application no.28040/08), which is not final, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:
A violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights
The case concerned defamation proceedings brought by a lawyer following a report in the Times of Malta newspaper that he had been found guilty of contempt of court at the final stages of a bigamy case.

You can read the press release from the European Court of Human Rights here and the full judgment here.

This judgment has many good points but to me, the most important point was the ECHR stopping the Maltese courts from redefining the practice of journalism. Here is the salient paragraph:

“To limit court reporting to facts reproduced in the records of proceedings, and to bar reports based on what a journalist has heard and seen with his or her own eyes and ears, as corroborated by others, would be an unacceptable restriction of freedom of expression and the free flow of information. While there may be a presumption that the official record of court proceedings is complete and accurate, such a presumption may be rebutted by other evidence of what occurred during the course of the proceedings. It follows that in a conflict between the records of the case and the sworn evidence of witnesses who have no personal interest in the case, a court should not discard the sworn evidence a priori. This is even more true where, as here, there is no apparent conflict since the record of the proceedings is silent on the matter in issue.”

Here’s why I haven’t been blogging much lately…

What with not wanting to get fired for being a loudmouth (which, admittedly, I am) and taking on some book editing projects which are taking up all that’s left of my “free” time, I have neglected this blog terribly.

I’ve been working on the loudmouth thing but I can’t help being offensive and tactless at times. I may not mean to be but I can’t please everyone. I know, I’ve read the insults on the right wing forums, I’m not above googling myself every now and then.

I think it’s only fair to my current employer not to embroil them into my previous life as a journalist and campaigner. But I’m itching to start blogging again, maybe I can find a compromise.