I refer to The Times’ reportage regarding the case Police vs Daphne Caruana Galizia. The newspaper reported that in her testimony , Ms Caruana Galizia made gratuitous allegations that “most of the cases of José Herrera and his legal office decided by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera ended up in probation or suspended sentences”.

It must be stated that by a judgement delivered by the European Court of Human Rights in the names of Joseph Micallef vs Malta (17056/06) of January 15, 2008, the court decided that it was against article 6 of the European Convention for Carm Mifsud Bonnici, today Minister of Justice, to appear before his uncle, the former Chief Justice Giuseppe Mifsud Bonnici. The government of Malta did not agree with this judgement and appealed before the Grand Chamber, which confirmed that judgement. Shortly after this judgement was delivered I decided to refrain from appearing before my sister and this notwithstanding that legislation precluding lawyers from appearing before family members was not yet in force. Until then it was common practice for all lawyers to appear before their relatives who would happen also to be members of the judiciary. In truth, there were no legal grounds for asking for an abstention.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.