An examination of Article 208E of cap. 9 of the laws of Malta : a legal analysis on the offence of revenge porn

Abstract

With the realm of Criminal Law, particularly within the sub-genre of sexual offences and other crimes affecting the dignity of persons, being of great interest to me personally, and the advent and development of such new offences in recent years based on new realities and the ubiquity of social media and its overreliance by members of my generation, my motivation for this dissertation was so to analyse and look at an offence that, along with others, I feel will be of great importance in the coming years despite its novel implementation, one which reflects modern realities. As such, I feel that the law and the whole system behind it is to always look forward, to always ensure that it protects human individuals adequately and to uphold their human rights, and to always ensure that due justice is served, no matter who it is for or against. As society develops, as new realities emerge, so shall the law adapt, and such an offence is one which reflects a clear example to me personally of how a new law may arise to protect against a never before seen offence, where the law provided such a provision to protect potential victims from such an offence that attacks their dignities. Nonetheless, I further personally feel that us future lawyers shall keep in mind such offences, looking at how such injustices may arise, and feel how all lawyers alike shall keep in mind such an ethical and moral standpoint, where we shall protect individuals against injustices while ensuring ourselves that we keep in mind the effects and harms victims go through to provide a more humane and moral approach taken by the law. With this, such an offence is another example of how such justice may be served, keeping in mind in particular that it often involves young and female victims who are often further attacked by the media and public opinion for their creation of such sexually explicit content in the first place, where often such opinion goes as far as to further victimise them. To this, I feel that such a dissertation will further reflect this reality to provide a better picture on which we can better understand the offence and the justice and protection such victims deserve. As a result, my dissertation will commence by looking at such an offence from a generic and overviewing outlook in the first chapter, whilst going on to look at various contemporary cases and various rich sources of literature on the offence in my second chapter that entails the literature review. Nevertheless, the third chapter goes on to provide a thorough legal analysis of the provision in question, looking at its elements and theories of how it should be applied, while looking at relevant case-law and doctrine, whilst analysing the amendments to the provision in subsequent years following its enactment. The fourth chapter goes on to bring about a comparative analysis between the Maltese provision and three different provisions of foreign jurisdictions, ranging from English (Common Law), to Canadian (Trans-Atlantic) to Italian (Civil Law) provisions to properly determine, compare and contrast such an offence under different jurisdictions to the provision in question. Lastly, the fifth and final chapter goes on to conclude the dissertation, looking at what was observed and providing my final recommendations in regard to the local provision in case of future amendments. As such, this dissertation will thus vastly and greatly analyse such an offence, reflecting all the different doctrines, theories and philosophies on the offence, along with the practical approaches both locally and in foreign jurisdictions, reflecting the rich theory and paradigm behind the criminal offence of so called revenge porn.