Prime Minister Joseph Muscat says the judge has measures he can take. Photo: Darrin Zammit LupiPrime Minister Joseph Muscat says the judge has measures he can take. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

The government is not in a hurry to pursue the impeachment motion for the removal from the bench of Lino Farrugia Sacco despite the court’s latest ruling against the judge.

Asked to give the government’s position following the judgment, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said it would now look at the contents of the sentence but underlined the need for Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco to be allowed all the time to exhaust his legal avenues.

“We will look into the sentence and take it from there,” Dr Muscat told Times of Malta yesterday.

Pressed on whether this meant the impeachment motion in Parliament would now go ahead or be left on the back burner, Dr Muscat said “there are measures which the judge can use and he has to be given the opportunity to use them”.

Last February, the Commission for the Administration of Justice had recommended that Parliament should move to impeach the judge over prima facie evidence of misbehaviour.

We will look into the sentence and take it from there

However, the House Business Committee, where the government holds a majority, voted to suspend the hearing of the motion until the conclusion of the constitutional case filed by the judge against the commission’s decision. Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco is now expected to appeal the decision. This will earn him more time to avoid impeachment as he is due to retire from the bench in August when he turns 65. In that case the motion in front of Parliament will automatically fall.

The Opposition has repeatedly accused the government of bending over backwards to avoid the impeachment of the judge due to his close connections with the Labour Party, particularly as his son was a Labour election candidate.

Giovanni Bonello, a retired judge of the European Court of Human Rights, had argued that Parliament could still move ahead with impeachment despite the constitutional case filed by the judge.

He said that Parliament’s decision to halt impeachment proceedings against Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco pending the outcome of the court case “conspired” to reinforce the conclusions that the judiciary became “wholly untouchable” once appointed.

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