When Enough Was Enough – And Then Some More

On 12 August 2025, Judge Lawrence Mintoff decided an application by Papaya Limited to muzzle the Times of Malta from publishing details of an FIAU Compliance Review. The company cited confidentiality under Maltese law and argued that disclosure would inflict irreparable harm to its rights in ongoing proceedings, requesting an injunction to gag the media.

The Judge threw out the application, bl-ispejjeż as they say when they want to emphasise that the losers lost.

As is customary with these things, the injunction had initially been granted on a provisional basis—cue the usual pearl-clutching, with the nuance of its provisional status lost amidst the uproar. There’s a case to be made for legislators to revisit the automatic, knee-jerk availability of this procedural device, but that’s a can of worms for another day.

The legal threshold for an injunction isn’t trivial. An applicant must usually show irremediable—i.e., real and imminent—harm that can’t be papered over with financial compensation after the fact, and a clear prima facie breach of a right worth protecting. Not every falling out qualifies. The involvement of the Fourth Estate—an institution the law should treat with some reverence—meant that the stakes were even higher. 

In truth, the law does respect the function of the press, though it must be said that certain wielders of the axe, especially those whose hair or general demeanour has an orange tinge, don’t, much.

Getting back to the case, Papaya had already planted the seeds of its own destruction. The Court noted that Papaya itself had actually filed the very report it wanted hidden as part of its own constitutional proceedings against the FIAU—without asking the court to seal it. The result: that supposedly confidential document sat in the Court Registry, available, even via eCourts to anyone sufficiently nosy and resourceful to go trawling.

It follows that once a document is already in the public domain—especially through the applicant’s own doing—the Court cannot restrain its publication. That is not a mere technicality; it strikes at the first limb of the test for injunctive relief: the existence of a right that’s still capable of protection. The Court found that Papaya had nothing left to shield.

Prohibitory Injunctions are powerful, but even they can’t wind back the clock once the horse has well and truly bolted, if I might be permitted to mix my platitudes a little.

Logically, Judge Mintoff could have left it there: no subsisting right, no injunction, end of story. Instead, he enunciated a reaffirmation of the constitutional and European Convention principles upholding the press’s role as “public watchdog.”  In what can only be described as a robust few passages of obiter dicta, he invoked authorities like Sunday Times v UK and Axel Springer v Germany, lauding the need to tolerate investigative journalism, provocation, even a little exaggeration, and staunchly defended the inviolability of journalistic sources.

Even though there was no contest—no need for weighing confidentiality against press freedom—because Papaya’s own actions had neutralised any right to confidentiality (if any such right exists) the banner of media freedom was still run up the flag-pole, needing a salute which I, for one, am happy to give.

The judgement is a loud and timely reminder for anyone tempted to try to chill the press’s watchdog function. Would-be silencers might well think twice and, like those whose reflex is to treat transparency laws as obstacles rather than obligations, reflect on the fact that the the media is there to scrutinise their actions, and not, to mention a non-random example, to have their every Freedom of Information request blocked and obfuscated.