The criminal case against three priests charged with child sex abuse may be suspended until a constitutional application filed by the accused claiming their case was prejudiced by the media is determined.
According to sources, the criminal case, which has dragged on for more than seven years, is at an advanced stage.
Suspension of the criminal case though is not automatic and it will be the Constitutional Court presided over by Judge Joseph Micallef that will have to decide the matter on Wednesday.
Magistrate Saviour Demicoli, presiding over the criminal case, may also decide to wait for the decision of the Constitutional Court before continuing with the case.
If the criminal case is suspended, there is no telling how long the wait may be before it continues being heard.
When two judges charged with bribery had filed a constitutional case claiming their right to a fair trial had been breached by a press conference given by then Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami in 2002, the case was determined on appeal in 14 months.
This was deemed to be a speedy process by legal observers who spoke to The Sunday Times. However, they were less optimistic this would be repeated in the priests’ case.
“The fact that the judges had brought a case against the Prime Minister may have contributed to a speedy process. We have to wait and see whether the same sense of urgency is applied in the constitutional case filed by the priests,” said a lawyer, who did not wish to be named.
The priests, in their late 60s, are charged with having sexually abused boys who were in their care at St Joseph’s Home in St Venera during the 1980s and 1990s.
Police filed criminal charges against the three priests in October 2003 when the alleged victims spoke about their ordeal in the media. The priests were not, however, under arrest when they were arraigned.
Magistrate Demicoli had at the time acceded to a request by the defence team to issue a ban on the reporting of court proceedings.
The ban stipulated that photos and footage of the priests and their names could not be published. Any evidence given by witnesses in court was also banned from publication and the case had to be heard behind closed doors.
This wide-ranging provision meant that nothing was heard about the case for seven years until the alleged victims, now in their late 30s, decided to speak out again last year during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Malta.
They had complained about the length of time it took for the case to be concluded.
In their constitutional application last Thursday, the priests contended the media publicity about the case violated their human right to a fair hearing and people, both in the media and elsewhere, were not respecting the ban.
Among other things, they asked the court to enforce the original ban ordered by the magistrate and in a separate application filed last Friday requested the same ban be imposed on the constitutional case.
Although some details of the constitutional application did emerge, all efforts to obtain a copy of the document have proved futile.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com