A stark choice: effective reform or ‘perpetuate systemic failures that enabled journalist’s contract killing’

The choice the State faces as it implements the recommendations of the public Inquiry into the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is a stark one: implement effective reform to prevent future deaths, or to perpetuate the systemic State failures that enabled her contract killing, according to her namesake foundation.

The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation presented the ultimatum in a call for holistic reform made on Friday evening in a document detailing its expectations of what an effective reform process and outcome of the Public Inquiry into her murder should look like.

The Foundation said it expects the State to implement the conclusions of the Public Inquiry report holistically “so that lessons learned from Daphne’s murder may yet save the lives of others”.

It stresses that measures to address impunity, corruption and abuse of power must also be an integral part of the reform and that it hopes “the spirit of transparency will characterise the reform from hereon”.

“There is no middle road to holistic reform,” The Foundation said in its 20-page document. “It must ensure that the corrupt and those who abuse power do not continue to enjoy impunity”.

The document outlines the minimal requirements of reform Malta must implement to create and maintain an enabling environment in which the country’s public interest media are able to fulfil their essential democratic function.

“By instituting the necessary far-reaching reform, the State would make the assassination of another journalist not only impossible but unimaginable, and would clearly signal that dehumanisation, threats, and attacks against journalists are unacceptable.”

The document identifies critical parameters for the reform process and outcome.

The process, it said, needs to be a strong one “based on the fundamental aims and values of reform should include an action plan with a clear timeline and milestones, and should bring about cultural as well as legislative, administrative, and policy reform.

Media laws: A bad process can never deliver a good outcome

Among the main parameters identified is the government’ limping attempt to draft new media laws to protect journalists, which, according to the Foundation, needs to be “a strong process based on the fundamental aims and values of reform should include an action plan with a clear timeline and milestones, and should bring about cultural as well as legislative, administrative, and policy reform.”

Unless this is done, “A bad process can never deliver a good outcome, and the opportunity for change will be lost.”

It also notes how the draft legislative amendments the government tabled in parliament last October “fall short of what is required to create an enabling environment for journalists and for a high standard of press freedom”.

As a guiding principle, the Foundation underscored that the legislation should be drafted and enacted only once civil society, parliament, and the government have a fuller picture of how much and what change is required.

“Reforms must be legal, administrative, and policy-related, and must fully address the systemic problems identified in the Public Inquiry, meet international standards, and address the shortcomings and recommendations identified in legal analyses commissioned by the OSCE Office of the Representative on Media Freedom.”

The Foundation contends the draft legislation “fall short of what is required to create an enabling environment for journalists and for a high standard of press freedom.

“Reforms must be legal, administrative, and policy-related, and must fully address the systemic problems identified in the Public Inquiry, meet international standards, and address the shortcomings and recommendations identified in legal analyses commissioned by the OSCE Office of the Representative on Media Freedom.”

The fight against corruption and money laundering can never be won without a strong press, and it will fail without efforts to protect journalism, the Foundation stressed.

The reform must include the introduction of sanctions for institutional inaction because, as indicated in the Public Inquiry report, justice following the assassination of the journalist requires the swift and effective investigation of all the journalistic investigations that she published.

On the thorny issue of State regulation of journalism, the Foundation argued that the notion “should have no place in any reform as it has no place in the protection of media freedom as the fourth pillar of democracy or in the effort to create an enabling environment for journalists.

“A focus on regulating the work of journalists assumes that journalists, and not State failures, are the problem.

“Journalism is incomparable to any other profession and therefore should not be regulated in the same manner. Regulating the work of journalists would not have saved Daphne’s life nor would it make the work of journalists in Malta freer or safer.”

The heightened risks faced by female journalists

The document also stresses that all and any measures must address the heightened risks that female journalists face online and offline. As stated in the Public Inquiry report, the dehumanisation campaign against Daphne Caruana Galizia, originating in and enabled from within the Office of the Prime Minister, is an aggravating factor in the State’s responsibility for her death.

The Foundation here cited Caruana Galizia’s own words: “My gender is a significant factor in the moral violence I experience on a daily basis as a critic of male politicians in the southern Mediterranean.”

Malta’s reform, the Foundation stressed, can only be as effective as the international standards to which it aspires, including the State obligations determined by the European Court of Human Rights, the recommendations and resolutions of multilateral institutions, and the analyses of multilateral bodies and international organisations whose remit is media freedom.

As such, the Foundation advises that any measures that undermine Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)4 or the European Commission Recommendation on ensuring the protection, safety and empowerment of journalists and other media professionals in the European Union should be excluded from the reform.

“An enabling and safe environment for journalists today can only exist within a legislative and administrative framework that truly protects society from the harms of corruption and abuse of power, and which ensures that the corrupt and those who abuse power do not continue to enjoy impunity.”