Suspended sentence was 'blatantly' in violation of the law

A judge ruled yesterday that the Magistrates' Court was wrong in handing down a suspended jail term to a thief who was a relapser.

Such a judgment "blatantly" violated the law which laid down that a suspended sentence could not be given to a relapser, Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono, sitting in the Court of Appeal, said.

In June, a magistrate had handed down a two-year jail term suspended for three years after Anthony Galea pleaded guilty to stealing three mobile phones worth about €2,330 from a Go outlet in Valletta and relapsing. A month later, the Attorney General filed an appeal asking that the suspended sentence be converted into an effective jail term.

Mr Justice Galea Debono said the Magistrates' Court should have never given Mr Galea a suspended sentence because he was a relapser. The Magistrates' Court could not hand down a suspended term because of a provision in the Criminal Code stipulating that a suspended sentence could not be given to relapsers, he said.

Such decisions went diametrically against the law and led to a lot of useless work for the appeals court, Mr Justice Galea Debono pointed out. In addition, they also prejudiced the interests of the guilty who would be satisfied with the suspended sentence but were then faced with an appeal by the Attorney General to convert it into an effective jail term.

Furthermore, the judge noted that, judging by his own experience while sitting in the appeals court, the Magistrates' Court was repeatedly handing down suspended sentences even when it was not empowered to do so.

Mr Galea's punishment was not a case of a wrong application of the law, wrong use of the court's discretion or the prosecution not giving all the information about the past criminal record of the accused, Mr Justice Galea Debono said.

Since Mr Galea did not appeal the suspended sentence, Mr Justice Galea Debono could only determine whether the jail term should remain suspended or become effective. He converted the suspended sentence into an effective two-year jail term.