Illegal arrest claim deemed unfounded

The Criminal Court yesterday dismissed as unfounded an application filed by a British man, charged with drug conspiracy, who claimed that his state of arrest was illegal.

In the application filed on February 27, Mark Charles Kenneth Stephens asked the Criminal Court to order his release as the state of his arrest was not in accordance to law on the ground that the magistrate presiding over his case had failed to abstain, when challenged, from delivering a decision.

Mr Stephens' legal battle started when he was extradited from Spain to Malta last September 10 to face drug charges.

In a ruling handed down last September 29, Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani Grima ruled there were sufficient reasons for Mr Stephens' indictment.

In that same ruling the magistrate also abstained from deciding on the matter of jurisdiction brought up by Mr Stephens who claimed that the Maltese courts did not have jurisdiction over his case.

Mr Stephens, insisting that the magistrate was to decide on the matter of jurisdiction, took his case to the higher court and, in a judgment handed down on February 14, the Constitutional Court ruled that the magistrate ought to have decided upon the plea on jurisdiction within the context of its decision as to whether there were sufficient reasons for a bill of indictment to be issued against Mr Stephens.

The Constitutional Court revoked the decree of the Magistrates' Courts delivered last September 29 and sent the case back to the magistrate to decide on the matter of jurisdiction and on whether there were sufficient reasons for Mr Stephens' indictment.

On February 23, Magistrate Padovani Grima ruled that the Maltese courts had jurisdiction over Mr Stephens' case and, for the second time, she ruled there were sufficient reasons for his indictment.

In the ruling she also dismissed a request in which she was asked to abstain from hearing the case as Mr Stephens' had challenged her impartiality to decide on the matter once she had already pronounced herself in the ruling on September 29.

Following this decree, Mr Stephens took his case before Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano, in the Criminal Court, where he filed the application claiming that his state of arrest was illegal.

This was because Magistrate Padovani Grima's decision not to abstain from hearing his case was in breach of the law.

The Chief Justice noted that Mr Stephens was claiming that his continued detention is not in accordance with the law on the sole basis that the committing magistrate erred when she refrained from abstaining after being challenged.

But did an error of judgment of a judge or magistrate necessarily bring about the illegality of a person's detention? the Chief Justice asked. It was the court's opinion that the answer was in the negative.

On evaluating the case further, the Chief Justice added that Mr Stephens' application was unfounded for the purposes of the law under which it had been filed. This was not to say that Mr Stephens may not have other remedies if he believed that the magistrate should have allowed his challenge. Assistant Attorney General Anthony Barbara prosecuted.

Lawyer Joseph Brincat appeared for Mr Stephens.