Hawker leaves court wondering what constitutes an early guilty plea

A hawker who argued that a Lm1,500 fine was an excessive punishment was fined an additional Lm100 when the Chief Justice ruled his appeal was "highly frivolous".

Richard Mercieca had been fined Lm1,500 by the Magistrates' Court when he pleaded guilty to circulating counterfeit CDs, DVDs and PlayStation games, breaching copyright and relapsing.

He then appealed claiming that the punishment was excessive because he had had cooperated with the police, had filed an early guilty plea and the amount of CDs and DVDs had not been taken into account.

Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano, presiding over the Court of Criminal Appeal, however dismissed the appeal as highly frivolous. He noted that Mr Mercieca had been convicted of piracy on four other occasions. Mr Mercieca's cooperation was of minimal relevance because he had been caught red-handed in possession of 103 video cassettes, 244 DVDs, 499 audio CDs and 89 games.

The Chief Justice noted that Mr Mercieca faced a jail term and the Magistrates' Court had only opted for a fine in light of his early guilty plea.

The Chief Justice added he could not understand "by what distortion of the calculation of time according to the Gregorian calendar or... of the Maltese language" could one speak of an early guilty plea - when the case started being heard in court on April 6, 2005 and the guilty plea was registered on October 20, 2006.

He declared the appeal as frivolous and fined Mr Mercieca Lm100.