Relevance of recordings 'to be determined during trials'

The relevance of recorded phone conversations to the case against two former judges charged with bribery will only emerge during their respective trials, a judge yesterday told defence lawyers as they challenged the admissibility of extracts of the recordings.

During two separate court sittings, in the cases against former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo and judge Patrick Vella, Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono heard their defence lawyers argue preliminary pleas.

In the first case, Mr Justice Galea Debono heard Dr Vella's lawyers make their pleas about various subjects including the admissibility of documents such as extracts from recorded conversations.

The lawyers explained that, in the recordings of the conversations - which had been recorded by the security serviced during investigations - third parties could be heard speaking about the former judges.

This constituted "documental hearsay" and was not to be admissible as evidence unless it was proven who the third parties were and unless those same third parties were called to the witness stand during the trial.

In the submissions made in Dr Arrigo's case, his defence team argued about the content of the bill of indictment as drafted by the Attorney General's (AG) office.

When asked if they had any pleas about the tape recordings, the lawyers noted that their client was never heard speaking on the recordings and this was confirmed by the prosecution.

Mr Justice Galea Debono noted that the importance and relevance of the recordings would only be determined during the trials as, for the sake of argument, a witness may recognise one of the voices in the recordings as his or the recordings could be used to regulate a witnesses' testimony. However, this would only be determined during the trials.

The judge added that since the two former judges were to be tried by the Bench, there was no risk of influencing or prejudicing jurors by the content of the tapes.

The case against the two former judges started on August 4, 2002, when they were charged with bribery and with revealing official secrets in connection with a judgment handed down by the Court of Criminal Appeal against drug trafficker Mario Camilleri on July 5, 2002.

A day before the two had been charged, the then Prime Minister, Eddie Fenech Adami, had given a press conference about the case. On arraignment, the two former judges filed a case in the First Hall of the Civil Court arguing that the comments passed by the Prime Minister had violated their human rights.

In December 2002, the Civil Court ruled that the declarations made in the press conference could not be considered as statements of guilt and declared that the fundamental rights of the two former judges had not been breached.

The two appealed to the Constitutional Court which, in October 2003, decided that the judges' right to a fair trial had been breached in the course of the press conference on the basis of the violation of the presumption of innocence.

The Constitutional Court, however, concluded that as the judges' fundamental human right to trial by an independent and impartial court had not been violated, there was no reason to halt the criminal proceedings against them.

In January 2004, the former judges took their case to the European Court of Human Rights which later declared the application inadmissible.

Early last year, the AG's office drew up a separate bill of indictment against the two judges and their lawyers are now in the stage of arguing preliminary pleas.

The two former judges chose that their case be tried by a judge and not by a panel of nine jurors. This choice is granted to them by law which states that: "...the accused may, not later than ten days after the date of service of the notice... file a note in the registry of the court opting that a jury be not impaneled for the trial..."

Lawyer Stephen Tonna Lowell is representing the AG's office.

Lawyers Tony Abela, Michael Schiriha and José Herrera are representing Dr Vella while lawyers George Abela and Joseph Gigilo are appearing for Dr Arrigo.