Thirty-five lawyers have signed a petition backing an application filed before the European Court of Human Rights highlighting inconsistencies in judgments handed down by the Maltese courts on the right to a lawyer during police interrogation.

The application was filed by lawyer José Herrera on behalf of his client Charles Muscat, known as Il-Pips, a few weeks after the Maltese Constitutional Court ruled there was no breach of his right to a fair hearing when he was not given access to a lawyer.

Mr Muscat argued that the court’s decision was “legally unfounded” and it was not in line with another three judgments handed down by the Maltese courts and others given by the European Court of Human Rights.

In all these three local judgments it was deemed unconstitutional that, at the time, Maltese law did not provide for legal assistance during interrogation. The law was amended in 2010.

However, the Constitutional Court – composed of Acting Chief Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo, Mr Justice Noel Cuschieri and Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon – “went back on the legal position,” Mr Muscat argued as he called on the Strasbourg court to rule that his right had been breached.

Mr Muscat, who is charged with trafficking in heroin and cocaine, had made a statement to the police in 2002 admitting his involvement. He had already been in prison since 1994 on other charges.

In 2010 he claimed he had not been assisted by a lawyer at the time because in 2002 there was no right at law for an accused person to be assisted by a lawyer.

In October 2011, the first court upheld Mr Muscat’s claim that this was in breach of his right to a fair hearing and ordered that his statement be removed from the case documents.

The Attorney General appealed to the Constitutional Court, which overturned the judgment arguing that Mr Muscat had been cautioned about his right to remain silent and had previous experience with police interrogations.

The court found that the statement was only part of the evidence and need not be removed.

The application was filed just a few days after the Constitutional Court, presided over by the same judges, handed down a judgment in a case similar to Mr Muscat’s. This time the court ruled there was a breach of the right to a fair hearing.

The Constitutional Court upheld a previous court’s judgment that found that Alfred Camilleri, a police drug suspect, suffered a breach of his right to a fair hearing when the police did not inform him about his right to remain silent while asking him about ecstasy pills at his mother’s house.

This case dates back to September 7, 2006, when drug squad police were investigating a certain Mario Abdilla for importing over 9,000 ecstasy pills inside a mirror shipped to Malta from London.

The police followed Mr Abdilla when they went to collect the mirror from the freight agency in Valletta and saw that Mr Camilleri was with him. The two men then took the package into a nearby house which belonged to Mr Camilleri’s mother.

Later on the police arrested the two men in Ċirkewwa and took Mr Camilleri back to the Valletta home. There he was asked several questions without being cautioned and without realising that he was incriminating himself.

This placed Mr Camilleri in a position where he was not aware of the option of remaining silent and could not be guided by his lawyer.

The court pointed out that, although this was not Mr Camilleri’s first brush with the law, it was the first time he was questioned by police.

Lawyers José Herrera and Veroniqué Dalli represented Mr Camilleri.