I must say I was very surprised and disappointed at seeing my name bandied about in a sensational manner in the front page article by a journalist in yesterday’s Times of Malta.

A couple of days ago, my daughter, who is on the newspaper’s staff, told me that a member of the staff wanted some authoritative legal information about the position at law in the light of reports regarding reforms in the drug laws.

I agreed to receive his call, which came some minutes later thinking that this would only involve a legal clarification of the position at law.

When the newspaper correspondent broached the matter to me I did say to him that I could not understand the basis of the reports because, as far as I was aware, no person convicted of “simple” drug possession for his own personal use was sentenced to imprisonment for as long as I can remember, except, perhaps, some 30 years back when drug cases started rearing their heads. I never used words like “dumbfounded” or “hullabaloo”, which were attributed to me. And I was not “reacting” to the Prime Minister’s statement; I was simply explaining the legal position in practice to the correspondent.

I informed the correspondent that when, some 20 years ago, Magistrate (now judge) David Scicluna dealt with drug possession cases, he introduced a sentencing policy of not condemning simple drug users – as distinct from pushers or drug traffickers who also used drugs themselves – to terms of imprisonment. Although the law makes “simple” drug possession for one’s personal use liable to a term of imprisonment, this is never applied in practice.

This sentencing policy has been followed ever since and in the eight-and-a-half years I presided over appeals from judgments from the Magistrates’ Courts I never had a single appeal from a drug user, whereas I had scores of appeals from convicted and sentenced pushers who also used drugs after they were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for drug trafficking.

I never mentioned the Prime Minister in my conversation with the correspondent and indeed I would never dream of being drawn into a controversy of a political nature as this would not be appropriate in my position.

I think that this action on the part of the correspondent merits a clarification in the sense that I was merely advising him of the situation of drug possession for personal use “in practice” as distinct from the provisions of the law and nothing more.

Editor’s note: It appears there was a misunderstanding. Any inconvenience caused by this is regretted.