Suspension letter was malicious – Farrugia Sacco

A judge who headed the Malta Olympic Committee felt that the Ombudsman was malicious when he published a letter calling on him to suspend himself in view of allegations about the international sales of tickets.

The Ombudsman, Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Said Pullicino, wrote the letter in the wake of the controversy over ticket sales for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. It was sent to the President, who also presides over the Commission for the Administration of Justice, and circulated to the press.

Steve Tonna Lowell, representing Dr Said Pullicino, submitted that the chronology showed the aim behind the letter was anything but malicious because it had been written on December 11 and published the following day while the late former judge Ray Pace had been arraigned on December 13.

The letter, he said before Magistrate Francesco Depasquale, was directed at the Commission for the Administration of Justice and not to the judiciary, rebutting an argument by Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco that the Ombudsman was precluded from commenting on the judiciary.

The judge’s lawyers, David Farrugia Sacco and Alex Sciberras, said Dr Said Pullicino himself had noted in the letter that he was precluded from commenting on the judiciary but he still went ahead and published it.

“Not only did he write it but he circulated it”, Dr Farrugia Sacco said, adding that this showed the act had been malicious.

The term corruption was also used in the letter and, as a former Chief Justice with a vast legal background, he should have appreciated the weight of his words, the lawyers said.

The case continues.