Compensating reputation damage in Maltese tort law

Abstract

The Maltese legal system is commonly described as a mixed jurisdiction. While the substantive roots of Maltese private law remain firmly anchored in the Continental civil law tradition, procedural and public law frameworks have been heavily influenced by British common law. This hybrid structure forms the legal context within which the Maltese law conceptualises reputational harm. Within the general law of delict, compensation for damage is governed principally by Article 1045 of the Civil Code, which has traditionally been interpreted as limiting recovery to patrimonial loss. As a result, reputational harm has often been treated as compensable only where it can be linked to demonstrable economic damage. This approach raises an important question: whether the existing legal framework adequately protects reputation as a legally cognisable interest in contemporary society. This thesis examines the treatment of reputational harm within Maltese civil law and evaluates whether the current compensatory framework remains conceptually coherent. Through an analysis of legislative provisions, judicial interpretation, and comparative legal developments, the study demonstrates that Maltese law recognises non-patrimonial harm in several specialised contexts, including constitutional litigation, data protection law, intellectual property, consumer protection and the Media and defamation legislation. This research argues that this fragmented recognition of non-material harm reveals an increasingly differentiated approach within Maltese private law. While the general delictual framework remains predominantly patrimonial, modern statutory regimes increasingly acknowledge forms of non-patrimonial harm, including harm to reputation. The thesis therefore concludes that the current legal framework produces an inconsistent approach to reputational harm and invites reconsideration of how such injury should be conceptualised and compensated within Maltese Civil law.