Defence lawyer Franco Debono is expected to present a judicial protest this morning against the Police Commissioner and the Registrar of the Courts after The Times reported the charges filed by the police against Sliema local councillor Cyrus Engerer.

Dr Debono said yesterday that whoever leaked the charges breached two laws: article 518 of the Criminal Code and article 39 (4) (c) (ii) of the Constitution.

However, another defence lawyer, Etienne Calleja, thought Dr Debono was trying to protect his client and in doing so was using those laws incorrectly.

Speaking as an independent lawyer, Dr Calleja said the charge sheet leaked to the press was not a court document until it had been read out in court in the first sitting, contrary to what Dr Debono was saying.

“It is wrong to say that article 518 affords confidentiality to court documents because this is not the purpose. The purpose is to ensure that documents within the domain of criminal justice are not purloined without permission of the court.

“There is an exception, however, that any document which is pronounced in open court can be inspected by any person. In this instance, since the case has not yet started, the charge sheet is not a court document because it has been drawn up by the police and not the court.”

He said Dr Debono was acting out of fear of prejudicial publicity and the effect this might have on the proceedings.

Furthermore, he added, Dr Debono was using article 39 of the Constitution incorrectly because it had nothing to do with prejudicial publicity. The law spoke of proceedings that could be held behind closed doors but “you cannot by any stretch of the imagination say that there is the guarantee of the confidentiality of the person charged”. The decision, he said, did not rely on jurors but on an adjudicator and, in this instance, a magistrate trained in law and immune to publicity and no amount of pre-trial publicity could change that.