Jason Azzopardi is a criminal lawyer who can credibly claim to have done more legwork to start proceedings against corrupt officials than police commissioner Angelo Gafà ever did. The hospitals inquiry and the case of the Identità racket spring to mind as recent examples. In both instances, the lawyer’s work kickstarted inquiries that shed light on major scandals.
And yet, as admirable as his pursuit of corrupt officials may be, he also demonstrates flashes of bad judgement which prove costly for the very same causes he fights for. Though he is innocent until proven guilty, Azzopardi – who is as vocal about transparency as they get – is yet to deny recent accusations that he illegally recorded footage inside court.
CCTV footage and eyewitness testimony showed Azzopardi passing by the subject of the footage – prime minister Robert Abela, justice minister Jonathan Attard, and a handful of aides – with his phone held to his ear. The key eyewitness admitted that he didn’t realise Azzopardi was filming since he would have otherwise stopped him from doing so. That doesn’t exclude the possibility that Azzopardi avoided detection until NET News published footage which was obviously illegal.
The Nationalist Party’s newsroom claimed that the footage showed the prime minister and the justice minister coming up with “a partisan strategy” following a court ruling earlier that same morning. The ruling in question confirmed that the state advocate does have the power and the duty to recoup funds lost as a result of the fraudulent hospitals concession. The footage shows the prime minister’s team poring over the ruling’s contents.
The primary fact is that the footage was taken at an angle and a height which are uncannily similar to the tilt a phone would have during a phone call. Given the absence of a denial and/or a convincing explanation, the uncontested submission of preliminary evidence which places him at the scene, and NET News’ poor justification for publishing the material, I find it hard to believe it was anyone other than him who did it.
The second fact is that whoever took the footage probably knew that recording this footage was illegal. I say ‘probably’ with a measure of confidence because it is unlikely that someone who is unaware of such a law would take precautions to pretend they were on a phone call while secretly filming the prime minister.
The most important detail is the framing. In spite of the lack of clear audio which confirms what was being said at the prime minister’s table, the footage was nonetheless presented as indicative of a state of panic. As true as that may or may not be, the footage is certainly no way to prove it. The Nationalist Party downplayed the fact that the footage was recorded illegally and, with the assistance of Azzopardi’s allies in civil society, framed the case as a witch hunt against government critics.
It is certainly true that the state’s prosecutors hardly ever move so swiftly to charge someone in court as much as they did to charge Azzopardi yesterday afternoon. It is evident the government is all too happy to pursue whatever legal strategies would get Azzopardi to shut up for at least a minute.
It is also equally clear that Azzopardi seems to have breached a law he knew he was breaching and that the claim this footage was published in the name of public interest does not stand up to scrutiny. In the fight against an unjust enemy, one must not become as disingenuous as the enemy. Losing the moral high ground against an immoral enemy means giving up the only battlefield in which you will always win.
In fact, the Labour Party was delighted to be on the other side of the fence, for once, calling out the dissonance between militating for the rule of law on one hand and then disregarding an established, routinely observed law on the other. They are obviously in no position to credibly talk about observing the rule of law, of course. But, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
It would be an entirely different matter if the footage actually served the public interest. In this case, nobody gained any information value from that footage. The prime minister and his team were not committing a crime that necessitated the gathering of evidence. You can argue all you want about how draconian it is to not be allowed to film inside the courts – I’ll be the first to agree to that. But the fact is that there was no moral imperative to breach this law for the sake of preserving evidence of a crime that would otherwise go unreported.
I’ve previously argued that in the fight against widespread corruption on every front, it is beyond foolish to bind yourself to the rules of hostile parties who seek to destroy you. It is the same logic which leads me to refusing to be ‘neutral’ in the work I publish, the same logic that leads major organisations to protests and disruptive action – logic that justifies doing whatever is necessary to survive in the face of repression.
Even in such dire conditions, crossing a legal boundary without a valid justification for it is not acceptable. The fight against repression is already fragile because of the sheer imbalance of resources between the oppressor and the oppressed.
The last thing that such a fight needs is someone playing fast and loose with its cornerstones.