The Opposition will not support a constitutional amendment that could see criminal cases handled by tribunals instead of the courts.
The amendment is a response to the Constitutional Court’s decision last year that certain provisions of the Competition Act were anti-constitutional.
Rather than changing the parts of the law deemed to be unconstitutional, the government has opted to change the Constitution.
But Nationalist Party spokesman Clyde Puli warns in today’s Talking Point that the government proposal has ramifications for all criminal cases and risks diluting the citizen’s right to a fair hearing. “So, for example, the government may decide, to expedite matters, that all those accused of thefts or hold-ups may be tried before some set-up constituted of lay persons and not magistrates or judges,” he argues.
The government may decide that all those accused of thefts or hold-ups may be tried before some set-up constituted of lay persons and not magistrates or judges
The Opposition move denies the two-thirds majority required for the amendment to pass, effectively blocking the proposed change.
The matter concerns a constitutional case filed by the Federation of Estate Agents, which contested the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority’s ability to not only charge it with wrongdoing but also to pass judgment and impose a hefty €1.2 million fine.
The Constitutional Court agreed with the federation that the fine was akin to a criminal charge, and according to the Constitution, criminal offences could only be dealt with by the courts. The court ruled parts of the Competition Act dealing with the authority’s ability to take action against errant operators were anti-constitutional. It barred the Director General for Competition from imposing fines on the grounds that such powers were only vested in a proper court.
The judgment was confirmed by the Appeals Court in May 2016 after the watchdog contested the ruling. The decision left the authority unable to take decisive action against operators if it found their actions in breach of the law.
This came to the fore last year when the authority found a fuel supplier guilty of breaching the competition law when it pressured a petrol station owner to revoke a diesel price cut.
The probe started in 2015 after a Rabat fuel station owner lowered the price of diesel by 2c, only to change his mind before implementing the decision, claiming pressure from his supplier, San Lucian Oil.
‘Ramifications for all criminal cases’
The supplier allegedly threatened to withdraw the station’s increased profit margin if the owner reduced the price.
The watchdog concluded last October that both the supplier and the station owner had breached the Competition Act through what is known as a resale price maintenance agreement. However, in its ruling, the authority said it wanted to issue a fine against the supplier but was precluded from doing so because of the Constitutional Court judgment that was handed down several months earlier.
Mr Puli says the government has dragged its feet on the matter and is now taking a shortcut at the expense of the citizen. He notes that the solution was outlined in the Constitutional Court judgment, which called for specialised courts instead of more tribunals.