A 43-year-old man who was handed a jail term for drug trafficking is claiming he was treated differently and had his right to a fair trial breached due to a legal loophole.

In 2014, Siggiewi resident Mario Zammit was sentenced to six months imprisonment and handed an €800 fine after being found guilty of having sold heroin for a five-month period in 2009.

Mr Zammit appealed the decision within the prescribed eight days. Meanwhile, in April 2015 the Drug Dependence Act came into force into 2015 and Mr Zammit asked the Court of Criminal Appeal to convert itself into a Drugs Court, arguing that the case had occurred in 1999 and that he trafficked to sustain his habit and had since reformed, married and had children.

However, the reform was implemented in such a way as to benefit every person accused, in every stage of proceedings, except at the appeal stage, his lawyers Veronique Dalli and Dean Hili argued.

The Attorney General deemed Mr Zammit to be a convicted - and not an accused - person, despite him appealing the judgment. When he was still the accused, Mr Zammit did not have the faculty of benefiting from the drugs law as it was still not in place, his lawyers argued.

The lawyers then filed an application to the Court of Criminal Appeal, but this request was not upheld, with the court saying its hands were tied and that this provision of law applied to every court but the Court of Criminal Appeal. Judge Edwina Grima also ordered her preliminary ruling to be sent to the Justice Minister to bring the anomaly to his attention. No action has been taken so far from the ministry's end.

Mr Zammit's lawyers filed another application, asking the Constitutional Court to establish whether his case was eligible to be heard before the Drugs Court.