The Chamber of Advocates would like to beef up the “vague” guidelines used in the vetting of candidates for the judiciary, in an effort to limit subjectivity.
Chamber president George Hyzler said the chamber was starting work on new “fleshed out” guidelines which it intended to propose for adoption by the Judicial Appointments Committee, which approves candidates for the posts of magistrate or judge.
The new guidelines would “better serve the underlying scope and purpose of the constitutional amendments”.
Dr Hyzler, whose first two-year term is coming to an end, said that even if the committee were to reject the proposals, they could still bind the president of the chamber, who sits on the committee.
“In my view, irrespective of whether these proposals are adopted or not by the committee or minister, our president should voluntarily adopt them as the basis of his judgment in assessing the eligibility and competence criteria of candidates for a judicial appointment,” Dr Hyzler said.
The current guidelines include such criteria as integrity and honesty, knowledge of the law and court procedures, industriousness and decision-making ability, impartiality and ability to work in a collegial environment.
So far, the committee has approved two candidates for the judiciary, lawyers Toni Abela as judge and Grazio Mercieca as magistrate, but rejected Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera for the post of judge.
The chamber had been very vocal about the need to make changes in the way members of the judiciary were appointed, which was solely the prerogative of the government.
Although politically appointed judges…have invariably risen to the occasion, they have had to struggle to counter the public perception of political bias
Last year, constitutional amendments led to the setting up of the Judicial Appointments Committee, with the chamber president taking a seat along with the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, the Ombudsman and the Auditor General.
The executive can now only make appointments to the bench from a pool of lawyers approved by the committee.
However, the changes do not go as far as the chamber had hoped. “This is a step in the right direction but we need to do more because as long as judges and magistrates are appointed by the executive at its discretion and not on the basis of a reasoned recommendation of the JAC, based upon a ranking of the approved applicants on the date of approval, it will inevitably continue to taint appointments with a political brush,” said Dr Hyzler.
“In fact, although politically appointed judges, including those previously active in partisan politics, have invariably risen to the occasion, they have had to struggle to counter the public perception of political bias.”
Turning to the status of the Lawyers’ Act, a draft law which regulates the profession, he said its failure to be passed so far was his “greatest disappointment to date”.
He did not mince his words in appealing to “those who should know better to refrain from continuing to undermine this Bill”. He refused to mention names, saying that whoever these people were would “get the message”.
“The Chamber of Advocates is there to safeguard the interests of its members and to push for higher standards in the legal profession. Once this law is in place, it will allow the profession to modernise in the interest of the professionals who exercise and the community that it serves.”
Ethics form an intrinsic part of the legal profession so Dr Hyzler’s committee is in the process of concluding a revision of the chamber’s code of ethics. “We also need to start publishing, on a no-names basis, decisions of the Committee for Advocates and of the Commission for Administration of Justice, as these decisions are a learned and practical source of interpretation,” he said. Dr Hyzler said the chamber was also in the process of appointing an official insurance broker to provide different professional indemnity insurance policies for lawyers.
“In today’s world, adequate cover is highly relevant and I strongly urge those lawyers who still resist the idea of being adequately insured to seriously re-consider their position,” he said, as he ran through a number of other initiatives in the pipeline.