Court rules former minister has no grounds for libel

Former PN Minister Tonio Fenech has lost the libel suit he filed against Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi over a 2014 radio interview in which Mizzi blamed him for rampant electricity theft, with the court stating that the allegations were “criticism and comments based on facts which are substantially true.”

In an interview on ONE radio in February 2014, Konrad Mizzi said that Fenech had been aware that new utility meters were easy to tamper with and had done nothing about it.

It emerged from the evidence of a number of witnesses, that the Enemalta Corporation at the time had been suffering from losses caused both by the infrastructure and theft. In 2008, before Fenech became minister, the corporation had entered into an agreement for the supply of smart electricity meters and a centralised computer monitoring system intended to reduce electricity theft.

In spite of some initial success, theft started to increase again in 2011, at which point the corporation discovered that the smart meters for three-phase systems were susceptible to tampering with a magnet. However, after commissioning an expert to assess the problem, the company had done nothing with his findings.

The court observed that the corporation’s Theft Control Unit had only been set up during Mizzi’s tenure. It also noted that although smart meters started being installed in 2009, the central analytics system used to identify theft cases was not installed until 2014.

Mizzi raised the defence of fair comment.

The court, in its considerations, observed that elected representatives were there to serve the citizenry and move the country forward, but when additional responsibility, such as Enemalta, was placed under that representative’s control, the responsibility towards the citizen increased a great deal and all actions carried out by the entity under his control were his responsibility.

If a shortcoming was identified, the minister concerned should shoulder the responsibility and not dust it off onto third parties, said the court.

It was clear that the Enemalta Corporation had been Fenech’s responsibility, the magistrate said, adding that although there had plans to reduce electricity theft, not enough had been done to do so or to identify the thieves, and the figures produced throughout the case were a clear indication of this.

“Therefore, the applicant cannot say that the words used about him by the defendant… are libellous and defamatory as they were simply criticism of what happened in the past; criticism which is always allowed for by a politician when they are talking about the actions of another politician, so long as the criticism and comments are based on facts which are substantially true and proven,” said the court.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale dismissed the suit, ordering the plaintiff to suffer the costs of the case.