In an unusual incident, Nationalist MP and lawyer Franco Debono yesterday stood in a courtroom and delivered a 15-minute tirade against the Minister of Justice, saying he should “wake up from his slumber” as there were serious issues that needed to be dealt with swiftly.

Backbencher Dr Debono made the comments during his defence of a client, Conrad Axisa, on drug trafficking and usury charges.

Venting his frustration, he pointed to a number of deficiencies within criminal procedural law.

Criminal procedure, he said, needed a “major overhaul” and it would be better if the person responsible for making the needed amendments were to “wake up from his slumber” and deal with the serious issues.

He criticised Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici’s decision to pen an article about a Pope for a newspaper rather than address serious and more pressing matters.

The procedure that governed arraignments was completely incorrect, he said. This included the wide discretionary powers granted to the police, who could decide whom to arraign under arrest and whom not to.

“I had two identical cases where one person was arraigned under arrest and the other under normal summons,” he told Magistrate Marseann Farrugia.

Another bone of contention was the fact that his client had spent 32 days in prison and only one witness had been heard, a situation he described as unacceptable.

Coupled with this was the anomaly that the Attorney General could ask for a revision of the bail conditions but the accused was unable to do so and, therefore, was denied a fundamental human right – that of appeal. Labour spokesman for justice and lawyer José Herrera, who was present in the courtroom, took the cue and backed Dr Debono’s call for immediate reform of the criminal code.

Questions were forwarded to the Ministry of Justice but no answers were forthcoming by the time of writing.