Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco.

Justice Minister Owen Bonnici yesterday fiercely defended his government’s decision to leave an impeachment motion against Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco on the back burner until he extinguishes all his legal rights before the courts.

However, the legal procedures instituted by the judge will not be concluded before he retires with full pension rights on August 22, and the motion in front of Parliament will then automatically become null and void.

Questioned by Times of Malta, Dr Bonnici said while he understood that the case highlighted the need for a faster way to deal with similar situations, the government could not risk breaching the fundamental rights of any member of the judiciary.

“We used a prudent stance in this case,” Dr Bonnici said.

“Although one agrees that when it comes to discipline of the judiciary there is the need to be more expeditious, this must not come at the expense of the fundamental human rights of an individual.”

Dr Bonnici denied politics had a bearing on the government’s decision, considering that Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco’s son was a Labour candidate in the last general election.

“It is not fair to cast a political tinge on Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco,” Dr Bonnici said.

“While it is true that his son contested on the Labour ticket, the judge has a long career and delivered many important judgments.”

The government’s decision to suspend the impeachment process raised eyebrows among the Opposition and senior legal practitioners who saw it as a tactical move designed to let the judge off the hook, an argument the government has always disputed.

“The decision to halt impeachment proceedings against a judge conspired to reinforce the conclusion that thejudiciary became wholly untouchable once appointed,” the government’s consultant on judicial reform, the respected Judge Giovanni Bonello, had told this newspaper.

The Constitution does not lay down that Parliament must wait for court procedures to come to an end in order to move on an impeachment motion.

Dr Bonello had said: “The House can only defend a decision to suspend impeachment proceedings on political considerations of prudence, not on constitutional considerations of legality.”

While a judge is currently appointed simply by a government decision, the appointee can only be removed through an impeachment motion supported by two thirds of MPs.

In over 50 years, not a single impeachment has been concluded successfully and no member of the judiciary was ever removed.

Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco has been in hot water since 2007 when he was accused of breaching the code of ethics for the judiciary though his decision to stay on as President of the Malta Olympic Committee.

Despite a written public warning from the Commission for the Administration of Justice, he only stepped down last year after an official impeachment motion had been filed against him.

Before the last election, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had gone on record saying he would follow the recommendation of the Commission with regard to Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco.

After the election, the Commission twice concluded that there was prima facie evidence that he had broken the code of ethics and should be impeached.