Silvio Scerri loses libel case against John Bundy

From TIMESOFMALTA.COM:

Magistrate finds it difficult to believe Mr Scerri was not involved in Norman Vella's transfer from TVM

A court has dismissed libel proceedings brought against John Bundy, now CEO of PBS, by Silvio Scerri, former chief of staff in the Ministry of Home Affairs when it was responsible for public broadcasting.

In a judgement this morning, the court declared that it was unlikely that Mr Scerri had no involvement  in the redeployment of broadcaster Norman Vella from TVM to the Immigration Office in June 2013.

John Bundy, Silvio Scerri and Norman Vella.

The issue arose following the publication of an article in this newspaper on June 5, 2014 which quoted Mr Bundy saying that Mr Scerri had removed Mr Vella's, post.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale, observed that it was the duty of the chief of staff to ensure that  the political direction set by the minister was implemented. It was also generally known that Mr Vella was a television presenter who did not enjoy much favour within the government.

The magistrate said that it was difficult to believe Mr Scerri's statement on the witness stand that he had no say in Mr Vella's redeployment and that he only got to know about it through the media.

"The court finds it hard to believe that a chief of staff within such an important ministry was not aware of correspondence between the permanent secretary and the Office of the Prime minister associated with the removal of Norman Vella from TVM" the court said.

Magistrate Depasquale observed that the decision to deploy Mr Vella back to the Immigration Office was "an administrative as well as a political one, and while the administrative decision was in the hands of the permanent secretary, the political decision belonged to the chief of staff."

On the basis of the documents presented by Kevin Mahoney, permanent secretary at the time, and also on the basis of the chronology of facts as testified by Mr Bundy, the court concluded that the version of the facts as described by John Bundy was much more likely and ascertainable than that explained by Mr Scerri. 

Lawyer Robert Abela was counsel to the defendant.