Mark Camilleri given three days to take Fenech-Cutajar chats offline

The author and blogger has been given three days to comply with the order or else face an administrative fine that is “effective, proportionate and dissuasive”.

A data protection probe requested by Yorgen Fenech has concluded that releasing the chats in their entirety was not in the public interest.

In his decision, Information and Data Protection Commissioner Ian Deguara said the publication did not benefit a democratic society and went beyond “journalistic exemption”.

Mark Camilleri had released the 370 pages of WhatsApp chats last March, one day before he was due to face MP Rosianne Cutajar in court over a libel case.

In her libel case filed against Camilleri, Cutajar vehemently denied having a relationship with the man awaiting trial for the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

However, the thousands of chat messages published by Camilleri indeed revealed an intimate relationship between Cutajar and Fenech.

The parties’ arguments

Fenech’s lawyers argued in their subsequent IDPC complaint that there was no substantial public interest in private conversations unrelated to their client’s criminal proceedings.

They said that the publication only served to create sensationalism and placed “the data subject in a perpetual negative light in the public eye”.

Camilleri’s lawyers argued in their submission that the WhatsApp chats were of significant public interest due to Cutajar’s denial of her relationship to Fenech.

They also listed several matters of public interest which had only come to light precisely because Camilleri had published the chats:

• A substantial amount of cash as a so-called ‘gift’ from Fenech to Cutajar for negotiating a property deal, which she had always publicly denied
• Cutajar’s infamous “Kulħadd jitħanżer” (Everyone is pigging out) comment about government MPs making extra money
• Her second salary for scarcely documented, “fraudulent” consultancy services at ITS, which she had failed to declare

Fenech’s lawyers said it “speaks volumes” that “out of over 370 pages of chats”, Camilleri “could only sum up four points” in an attempt to justify his defence.

‘No blanket exemption’

Data commissioner Deguara said that Camilleri could have identified those chats which were specifically in the substantial public interest to disclose.

He ruled that Camilleri had failed to demonstrate that the processing of Fenech’s personal data was proportionate, necessary and justified for reasons of substantial public interest.

Deguara also noted that journalist’s exemption under data protection law “should not be treated as a blanket exemption”.

It is understood that Camilleri will appeal the IDPC’s decision within the 20 days given to do so.

Camilleri ‘not worried’

Update 18:00 | Mark Camilleri said in a first reaction that he will not follow instructions to delete the chats.

“It’s in the public interest that these chats are available. These chats took place when Cutajar was representing the people in parliament”, he explained.

Camilleri said a “reasonable court” would immediately understand that there is a public interest, adding “there are enough legal reasons to defend this argument and I am not worried”.