Magistrate Francesco Depasquale today ruled that the l-orizzont advert saying former director general of GRTU Vince Farrugia described employees working in precarious conditions as "rats" was factually correct. It was therefore not a case of defamation, even if it was published 135 times.
The court threw out the libel case Vince Farrugia filed against the editor of l-orizzont, Josef Caruana about a banner showing that Mr Farrugia made disparaging comments about workers doing precarious work.
Mr Farrugia said he felt personally insulted and defamed by the banner which was published between 14 January 2012 and 21 November 2012. He stated that he had never said the words and he was also annoyed at the sheer amount of times the banner was published.
It was said in court that Mr Farrugia gave this controversial label to workers during an MCESD meeting on 14 November 2011. At one point there was an argument between Mr Farrugia and Mr Tony Zarb, who was Secretary General at the time, about workers who were employed in precarious conditions. Mr Farrugia proceeded to say that those workers finding protection in the name of the GWU are rats.
This was confirmed both by Chairman of MCESD at the time, Sonny Portelli and the Executive Secretary at the time, Sylvia Gauci.
Mr Farrugia insisted that he used the name "rat" to refer to people importing merchandise from overseas, but the court replied that this was not corroborated by the four witnesses who actually confirmed his use of the word as previously mentioned.
from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/1P0enxl
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment