Possession of voting document: AG could not appeal decision of first court

The following reply was sent by the Director General of the Courts Justice Department, with regard to a report entitled ‘Former PL councillor, police constable cleared of illegitimate voting document possession,’ which was published on Monday.

“Contrary to what was stated in that report the Court of Appeal presided by the Chief Justice Dr Silvio Camilleri did not “confirm the original decision.” In its judgment on 17 March 2017 the Court held that the decision of the first court could not be appealed by the Attorney General and therefore the Court limited itself to declaring the appeal filed by the Attorney General to be null and therefore abstained from taking further cognizance of the appeal.

Furthermore the Court held that some consideration made by the first court were not legally valid since these had no bearing on the issue of guilt or otherwise of the persons charged although they could have had some bearing on the amount of punishment in case of a finding of guilt. In this regard the Court made specific reference to the considerations as to where the complaint originated from and any “long standing practices” in Gozo.

The Court of Appeal also commented that the first court’s reference to a public educational campaign and to the possibility of disciplinary proceedings, when what was in issue was the criminal responsibility or otherwise of the persons charged, were more a source of perplexity rather than of clarity as to what was really legally decisive for the purpose of the judgement which the first court was called upon to give.

Finally the Court added that its observations were especially called for because while the first court made lengthy considerations on the above, no attempt was made by the first court to throw some light on the elements of the offences charged, and which is found to be lacking, although it concluded that the necessary elements had not been proved.

Moreover, the Court of Appeal did not give any order “for the names to be kept hidden due to the sensitivity of the case”.