Watching over you

It was decided lately in Parliament that adjudicants’ misbehaviour ought to be judged by their own colleagues who together form a big family known as the Collegium. For a long time we have been hearing debates about who ought to bell the cat. Should it be Parliament with its two thirds majority? Or a special commission overseeing all such misbehaviours and injustices? But enough of commissions and quangos galore. They never seem to work. In fact, when it was reported to Mepa that Signor Palumbo was making too much noise, the former advised the latter to regularise his position by carrying out an inspection. Which is like saying: “Hey ye hallowed judges and magistrates, please report any wrongdoing of your colleagues.” Yea, fat chance! Months later, Palumbo is still making noise!

The justice system, Minister for Justice Owen Bonnici informed us lately, was running smoothly ( fuq ir-rubini) and that court delays have been cut to a minimum. On 6th March it was reported in The Times that 71 people have been awaiting trial since 2002. One case in Gozo took 21 years to be decided – from September1995 to May 2016 – and another case in Malta was deferred for 24 years (see ToM, 22 March). To rub salt into the wound, “Bonnici considers fees for criminal complaints” (ToM, 8 July). As if court fees are not high enough as it is, together with lawyers’ fees that sometimes can be exorbitant. Is it right that a rich man can afford justice but the ordinary worker cannot?

A woman accused of enriching herself with the illicit proceeds that had belonged to her former murdered boyfriend, was found not guilty by a latter day Solomon who likes to dish out words of wisdom apart from his sentences, very much similar to that of the Biblical King. “The court is not naïve, however there are doubts, and her gains were not proved to be illicitly gained.” I wonder if he took into account whether the police had carried out the correct investigations to see if the transfers on the car and the flat were properly made. And if the court is not naïve, then there are suspicions that all is not well. But the court decided that since there was not enough proof, the woman could enjoy her illicit gains. The judge ought to have been wiser: Did the police do their job properly and efficiently?

A 63-year-old man rams his motor yacht into an 81-year-old man’s kayak or frejgatina at Tigné Point where it was stationed. In the kayak was the 81year-old man peacefully passing his last few days fishing. The frejgatina broke into pieces and sank, and the fisherman drowned. The motor yacht’s owner was charged with involuntary homicide, but years later, the court decided that according to the forensic experts, the yacht owner was not to blame because the old man had cataracts and could not see the yacht coming his way, while the sun shone fiercely into the yacht owner’s eyes and thus could not see him and his frejgatina. So the court blamed it all on the sun, and the yacht owner was acquitted. I have yet to see a more devious, malicious and unjust sentence than this!

A young man stabbed a journalist several times with a knife because he caught him dating his former girlfriend. The journalist was taken to hospital while the knife stabber was put under arrest and charged with attempted murder. Years later (many cases in Malta seem to be put on the back burner for some suspicious reasons), instead of going to trial by jury, the magistrate decided that the poor stabber, according to the appointed clinical psychologist and probation officer, had suffered from a traumatised childhood when he was placed in a boys’ home, and that he was not fit to be sent to jail. So the murderer was found guilty of attempted murder but was allowed to go scot free, with a three-year probation and supervision order, and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. The journalist, in the meantime, is living in the UK, too terrified to live in his country again. If there was ever a case which stank to high heaven of corruption, this is it! Is the Attorney General still alive, or is he hibernating? He ought to have appealed these two last sentences right away.

It must also be mentioned that it is possible that the trial by jury of the two convicted murderers, namely David Zahra of Gozo and the Libyan El-Ghadi, could be termed as mistrials since they had already been found guilty by the news media and could have caused jurors to be biased against them. Thus, it would be wise to select jurors from some North European country, preferably the UK, instead of local jurors, as foreign jurors would not have had access to the news media.

In the code of Criminal Appeal there is clause 515, which clearly says that if new evidence is brought forward, even years after the case had been decided, the aggrieved can ask the Prime Minister to ask the Law Courts to open the case again. In the UK there is the equivalent known as the Criminal Cases Review Commission and it has been used efficiently and successfully for a number of years now. The big question is: Why are the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice so adamantly against using clause 515? Are they afraid that it could be used against them and their colleagues? In the UK there is no such fear from any quarter because justice is seen to be done and those with positions of trust are conscientious and believe in and abide by the rule of law, or else they resign. So it makes one think and wonder: Is the justice system in Malta so unjust that there is fear from the justice system itself?

Ponder on the above dear brothers and sisters, maybe at last you will find enough enthusiasm to enlist with and give your bit to Justice Watch Malta. (It can be reached at PO Box 1, Cospicua). Frank Theuma