Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco, who is facing an impeachment motion in Parliament, retires from the Bench today on his 65th birthday, the legal limit for the retirement of judges.

PN deputy leader Mario de Marco, speaking at a press conference outside the law courts, said this was a black day for accountability and good governance.

It was a black day for whoever believed that judges should be held accountable for their actions.

Parliament, he said, should not have waited for the outcome of several judicial proceedings but should have gone ahead since Parliament was supreme and the Constitutional Court did not find any breach of human rights.

"The law becomes an ass if it allows people to use judicial processes to stall other proceedings," he said.

In a reaction, the Justice Ministry said the Opposition should be more mature on sensitive issues such as the removal of a judge. Instead, it was resorting to political opportunism. 

It knew that the government had acted responsibly according to Constitutional procedures. The government was not prepared to ignore fundamental rights, which were at the core of the democratic system. 

The Commission for the Admin­­istration of Justice twice concluded that the judge broke the jud­iciary’s code of ethics and should be impeached.

An impeachment motion had been moved by former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi, which, however, was declared extinguished by the Speaker of the House, Anġlu Farrugia, on grounds that such a motion could not be carried from one legislature to another and, furthermore, Dr Gonzi had resigned from the House.

This led Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to move a fresh impeachment motion but the judge had been challenging the procedure followed in court.

Contacted at his home yesterday, Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco – who was relieved from his duties last January – said he had no comment to make to the media. “I have absolutely no comment to make,” he told Times of Malta in a calm voice.

Asked whether he had any statement to make once he was due to retire facing an impeachment motion, the judge reiterated he had nothing to say. “The issue is still sub judice and I will only comment when the time arrives,” he said.

Last February, after the Commission for the Administration of Justice had recommended for the second time in two months that Parliament should debate the impeachment motion, the government opted to give the judge the opportunity to exercise his legal rights before Parliament would proceed with the impeachment motion.

The Opposition had accused the government of employing derailing tactics as it knew that a postponement would mean the judge would be left off the hook given his imminent retirement.

The issue is still sub judice and I will only comment when the time arrives

A former judge of the European Court of Human Rights, Giovanni Bonello – who drew up proposals for a judicial reform – had said that Parliament’s decision to wait “conspired to reinforce the conclusion that the judiciary became wholly untouchable once appointed”.

Before the last election, Dr Muscat had declared that although Mr Farrugia Sacco’s son was a Labour candidate it would not have any bearing on the matter. He said he would follow whatever the Commission for the Administration of Justice would recommend.

In 2008, the judiciary watchdog had taken the unprecedented decision to publish a letter calling on Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco to resign from his position as president of the Malta Olympic Committee as this was flagrantly in breach of the code of ethics.

The judge had defied the call and continued to sit on the MOC council until last year when he decided not to run for office again.

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