Editorial

There is nothing inherently shocking in the words "it became known" (sar maghruf) and "it resulted (to the police)" (irrizultalha) which the prime minister used in his news conference last year when announcing that two judges were being investigated for bribery. But on the strength of those words, and in the context in which they were uttered, the Constitutional Court found that the prime minister considered the two judges guilty of the charge of receiving bribes. This was an opinion, the court found, which was subjectively reinforced by various newspaper reports of the news conference the prime minister had given, and where he had spoken those words.

Shocking and much stronger words have been uttered by politicians which did not carry the implications and consequences of the innocuous-sounding comments by the prime minister. One need only recall the disgraceful "aristocracy of the workers" description made by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, then yet to become prime minister, about shipyard workers who had just gone on a devastating, criminal rampage. That utterance was not something to go to court about, so the country just lumped it and moved on, disgusted and under shock. Retribution for Dr Mifsud Bonnici came only three years later, at the polls. For Eddie Fenech Adami it has turned out differently, he is staring a contrary Constitutional Court judgment on remarks he made only 14 months ago, in a case which, at least at its outbreak, could have tripped much wiser men.

In Dr Fenech Adami's case the difficulty has arisen in connection with the drugs case of a man serving time who had appealed his sentence. The former chief justice, Noel Arrigo, and another judge, Patrick Vella, also hearing the appeal with a third judge, have since been charged, in connection with the hearing of that appeal, with two counts of bribery, and one of revealing official secrets in relation to the appeal court's sentence.

Imbued with the law as he is, the Constitutional Court's finding cannot but be excruciatingly painful to Dr Fenech Adami. Though the prime minister, in his news conference, also called on the public to await the results of the legal investigations, the exhortation, the court found, did not have much effect. This had led, the court added in its judgment, to the violation of the judges' right to the presumption of innocence. The consequence of this was that the right of the accused to a fair trial had been violated. Hardly anything else could be more painful to someone who had till then been a stickler in observing the law.

The judgment, which the government cannot appeal, could not have come at a worse time for Dr Fenech Adami, now at the apex of his political career, on the threshold of the historic moment of Malta becoming a member of the European Union, for which Dr Fenech Adami has been striving for so long, and shortly, probably only months, before he is expected to hand over to a successor the leadership of the party he has led so successfully.

In an interview with The Times, given after the judges' arraignment, Dr Fenech Adami was unrepentant about the news conference, where he had made the remarks now found to be so damaging by the Constitutional Court. The prime minister cannot but be wondering how words have a habit of coming back to haunt those who speak them.