Court rules it was correct to exhibit warrants

The First Hall of the Civil Court has decided that a magistrate hearing the compilation of evidence in a drug-related murder case was right to have ordered the exhibition of warrants authorising phone tapping.

The ruling was made in a case filed by the Attorney General who had objected to the decision to exhibit the documents after the head of the Security Service tried to stop them from being included in the records of the case.

According to law, phone tapping can be carried out in drugs and money laundering cases on the strength of a warrant signed by a Cabinet minister designated by the Prime Minister. The warrant also has to include details of the case.

During court proceedings last year against Marco Pace, who stands charged with the murder of 51-year old Victor Magri in 2004, Police Inspector Chris Pullicino had exhibited tape recordings of phone calls involving Mr Pace.

Defence lawyers Emmanuel Mallia and Arthur Azzopardi had demanded that the warrants authorising such phone tapping be exhibited in court in order to ensure that the recordings had been made legally and non-abusively.

Security Service head Godfrey Scicluna objected.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera, who is presiding over the proceedings, ordered that the warrants be exhibited and inserted in the acts of the case.

Mr Scicluna and the prosecution disagreed, insisting it was illegal to do so. They asked the magistrate to revoke the decision but the court declined to do so and the warrants were exhibited in April last year.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera then gave the Attorney General two weeks to contest her decree.

The Attorney General resorted to the First Hall of the Civil Court, arguing that it was not in the public interest to have the warrants exhibited.

Dr Mallia and Dr Azzopardi countered that it was not within the competence of the First Hall of the Civil Court, presided over by Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo, to hear the case. Only the Criminal Court of Appeal could decide the matter once the criminal proceedings against Mr Pace were concluded.

Mr Justice Caruana Demajo this week upheld the defence lawyers' request and ruled that the decision by the magistrate to order the warrants to be exhibited was in line with the law.

Speaking afterwards, Dr Mallia described the ruling as an important judgment because it served as a safeguard against any abuses that might occur during phone tapping.

The compilation of evidence in Mr Pace's case will now proceed.