Lawyers for clerical sex abuse victims will be filing an application in court requesting the judge to abstain from hearing their case because of his connection to Radju Marija.
Lawyers acting on behalf of clerical sex abuse victims will be filing an application in court requesting the judge to abstain from hearing their case because of his connection to Radju Marija.
Mr Justice Joseph Micallef, who is presiding over the victims’ case for financial compensation against the Church and two priests defrocked from the Missionary Society of St Paul, is the president of the local Radio Maria Association.
The association, which forms part of an international family spreading the five continents, promotes the “promulgation of the evangelical message of joy and hope... according to the teaching of the magisterium of the Catholic Church, with a clear and rich Marian spirituality”.
The Sunday Times of Malta learnt that lawyers Patrick Valentino and Franco Vassallo will be filing the application in the coming days.
“Everybody has a right to have peace of mind that they are being judged by an impartial and independent judge,” Dr Valentino said.
The decision whether to abstain or not is in the hands of the judge himself. If Mr Justice Micallef chooses to abstain, the case will go back to the Chief Justice who will then assign a new judge.
The case for compensation started in October 2013 after former priests Godwin Scerri, 77, and Charles Pulis, 68, were found guilty and sentenced to five and six years’ imprisonment respectively for abusing 11 boys in their care at St Joseph Home in Santa Venera in the 1980s and 1990s.
Dr Valentino said the sittings were progressing well, but they were still stuck on whether the case was time barred by law or not.
Lawyers representing the Curia are arguing that the request for financial compensation is time barred while the victims are insisting it is not because the Church had offered help in the form of psychiatric and psychological care.
Lawrence Grech, the victims’ spokesman, said he had taken up the Church’s offer and last July had gone to see a cognitive behavioural therapist who prescribed medication used to treat “severe depression”.
“My personal GP told me not to take them... Apparently these pills knock you out and I have a business to run,” he said, adding that a relative who was prescribed a much lower dose than him took most of the morning to get going.
Common side effects of the pills (one in 10) – which he was told to take for three months before visiting the therapist again – include poor concentration, dizziness, sleepiness and nervousness, according to the medical leaflet.
Mr Grech’s doctor did encourage him to take up the Church’s offer of psychological support, but he admitted that he had only been once.
Asked why he had not pursued this further, Mr Grech proffered a sheepish explanation: “I only went once because the psychologist ended up crying more than I did... I don’t need any more problems than I already have.”