Balancing journalistic freedoms with the right to privacy

Abstract

This research project will delve into the ongoing human rights battle between journalistic freedoms, mainly those of expression and press, and individual privacy, inter alia in the form of the rights to maintain a social reputation, to receive a fair trial and ultimately to protect one’s own private life. While identifying the leading issues concerning current media laws in Malta, including the continued criminalisation of defamatory libel, the void of no legal consideration for news online and the general lack of specific regulation of journalists, the project analyses the workings of bodies such as the Institute of Maltese Journalists and the Press Ethics Commission, who resultantly are not vested with enough power at law to enforce their decisions through the Code of Journalistic Ethics, or to be prevalent forces in both the protection of journalists and the accountability system applied to the media. The potential clout of the Data Commissioner to create a code of conduct, unambiguously regulating journalists in Malta, is the driving force of the argumentative discussion hereunder, accompanied by observations of how such a code could better protect both journalistic freedoms and the right to privacy, if effectively put into operation together with existing media legislation. Member States of the European Union do not regulate journalism in a uniform manner, and Malta has traditionally had its media law inspired by the United Kingdom, but by taking into consideration successful systems of regulation in other countries, such as the establishment of a Press Ombudsman or structures of media accountability combining codes both of ethics and of conduct, Maltese journalists can benefit from valuable improvements to their present legal standing.This research project will delve into the ongoing human rights battle between journalistic freedoms, mainly those of expression and press, and individual privacy, inter alia in the form of the rights to maintain a social reputation, to receive a fair trial and ultimately to protect one’s own private life. While identifying the leading issues concerning current media laws in Malta, including the continued criminalisation of defamatory libel, the void of no legal consideration for news online and the general lack of specific regulation of journalists, the project analyses the workings of bodies such as the Institute of Maltese Journalists and the Press Ethics Commission, who resultantly are not vested with enough power at law to enforce their decisions through the Code of Journalistic Ethics, or to be prevalent forces in both the protection of journalists and the accountability system applied to the media. The potential clout of the Data Commissioner to create a code of conduct, unambiguously regulating journalists in Malta, is the driving force of the argumentative discussion hereunder, accompanied by observations of how such a code could better protect both journalistic freedoms and the right to privacy, if effectively put into operation together with existing media legislation. Member States of the European Union do not regulate journalism in a uniform manner, and Malta has traditionally had its media law inspired by the United Kingdom, but by taking into consideration successful systems of regulation in other countries, such as the establishment of a Press Ombudsman or structures of media accountability combining codes both of ethics and of conduct, Maltese journalists can benefit from valuable improvements to their present legal standing.