Judge alludes to personal case in court judgment

A judge who was recently criticised by the Commission for the Administration of Justice for occupying the role of president of a sports organisation took the unusual step of making reference to the case in a Constitutional Court judgment last week.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco said he was "perplexed" at how, in court, the Commission refused to divulge information about a case it investigated but then issued press statements about other cases.

In October last year, Magistrate Antonio Mizzi and Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco, the president of the Malta Basketball Association and the Malta Olympic Committee respectively, received a letter from the Commission for the Administration of Justice informing them that as long as they retained their respective posts, they were in breach of the Code of Ethics of the judiciary. This letter was also copied to the media.

Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco handed down the judgment while presiding over the First Hall of the Civil Court, in its Constitutional capacity, in a case involving Maria Dolores Debono and the Attorney General.

In December 2006, Ms Debono filed a judicial protest against the Attorney General explaining that a case she instituted against Alfred and Doris Galea over the payment of rent of a dwelling in Marsascala had been pending before the Court of Appeal for 47 sittings and a decision was never handed down. The court heard that the case had been pending since April 12, 1999.

She explained that she had written to the Commission for the Administration of Justice, chaired by President Eddie Fenech Adami, but never received a reply. She therefore referred the case to the Constitutional Court claiming that her right had been breached as a result of this excessive delay.

The court, presided over by Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco, heard Reno Cortis, a clerk at the Commission for the Administration of Justice, testifying that all cases dealt with by the Commission were confidential.

The Attorney General said that according to the Constitution, through which the Commission is regulated, all Commission hearings were held behind closed doors and that even the reports drawn up remained confidential if the sittings were held behind closed doors. He said the aim of this provision was to protect the identity of the people involved.

Mrs Debono, through her lawyers, also raised a point on a claimed breach of the 'equality of arms principle', since the Attorney General was a member of the Commission and therefore knew more than she knew about her own complaint because she had always been left in the dark.

In his judgment, Mr Farrugia Sacco said that as the Attorney General had said in court, Commission hearings were held behind closed doors and the reports remained confidential.

It was at this point of the 20-page judgment that Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco made an indirect reference to his own personal case, which did not remain confidential but was published in the local media.

"This court is completely perplexed about how the Attorney General can say all this (that the cases investigated remain confidential) when it knows that it is not the first time that the Commission issued press releases about cases..." he said.

Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco went on to state that the court could not take into consideration procedures taking place before the Commission as proof on a claimed breach of human rights because "the Commission is not a court".

Had it been a court, it would have been regulated by sub-paragraph three of Article 39 of the Constitution which states that all court hearings must be held in public, except when there is an agreement by all parties for these to be carried out behind closed doors.

Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco dismissed Ms Debono's claims.