Welshman Daniel Holmes, who is serving a 10-and-a-half-year jail term over cannabis cultivation, has been awarded €7,000 in compensation after a Constitutional Court ruled that criminal proceedings against him took an unreasonable amount of time.
The court also upheld his claim that he had been exposed to arbitrary punishment and received a tougher sentence than others who had larger quantities of drugs.
The case dates back to June 21, 2006, when Mr Holmes was arraigned before the Gozo courts and charged with importation, cultivation, possession and selling of cannabis.
He received a tougher sentence than others
The police found him in possession of just over a kilo of dried cannabis and 0.24 grams of resin with a total value of €11,694.44.
On November 24, 2011 Mr Holmes was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years’ imprisonment and fined €23,000. This judgment was confirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeal a year ago.
As he analysed these dates and the number of times the case was put off without a reason in the acts of the case, Mr Justice Ellul said the “excessive court delays” were “intolerable”, especially for the compilation of evidence to take seven years to be concluded.
Mr Holmes also argued that he was discriminated against on account of the Attorney General’s discretion to decide whether to be tried before a magistrate or face a trial, which could carry a maximum of life imprisonment.
The Attorney General’s “unfettered discretion” to decide which penalty would be applicable with respect to the same offence violated Mr Holmes’ right to freedom from arbitrary punishment, the court ruled.
In his application, Mr Holmes, who had admitted cultivating cannabis in June 2006, also argued an article of the Drugs Ordinance “breached his right to fair trial because it fails to distinguish between cultivation of cannabis for the purpose of personal use and cultivation to traffic”.
He said it left the parameters of punishment very wide, ranging from six months to life in prison.
Mr Justice Anthony Ellul agreed that Article 22(1) of Chapter 101 was “unconstitutional”.
However, he ruled Mr Holmes’s rights had not been breached as he had admitted to the cultivation of cannabis for the purpose of trafficking.
Mr Holmes further argued his constitutional rights were breached as he had no choice of lawyer.
The legal aid lawyer who represented him was chosen according a roster from a pool of 10.
Mr Justice Ellul dismissed this complaint as “trivial”.
However, he noted the quarterly retainer fee for legal aid lawyers is issued by the Attorney General’s office and it would “more appropriate” if it came from elsewhere so there would be no link to this office. Lawyers Franco Debono and Michela Spiteri were defence counsel.