Magistrate wants secrecy rules revised as Malta Today wins contempt case

Legislators should seriously consider updating rules regarding the secrecy and confidentiality of court proceedings, a magistrate declared when throwing out a contempt of court claim against Malta Today.
Magistrate Victor George Axiak made that observation in two separate but parallel judgments concerning articles published by the news outlet based on snippets of voice recordings exhibited in evidence during the compilation of evidence against Yorgen Fenech, who stands accused of complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
A number of those recordings, made by self-confessed murder middleman Melvin Theuma, were played behind closed doors in court. The court had also banned copies of documents forming part of the records of the case from being published or shared with third parties that are not involved in the case. 

Yet, between August and October 2020, Malta Today published a series of four stories which included snippets from those recordings hit by the court ban.
Shortly afterwards, the court registrar filed proceedings against Saviour Balzan and Matthew Vella as Malta Today executive director and executive editor respectively, for breaching that court order which...