A new magistrate will be appointed in the coming days, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said this evening when moving the debate on the Bill to reform judicial appointments.
Although he did not mention Caroline Farrugia Frendo by name, the minister said that not many lawyers were willing to serve on the judiciary and that was why it hurt when certain people who wanted to serve were bullied "because of who their father was or for other reasons".
Dr Farrugia Frendo, the Speaker's daughter, was nominated under the current system and the minister had already said, when he presented the Bill to the media that he wouldstill carry on with her appointment.
Questions had been raised about her eligibility because when she was nominated she did not yet meet the statutory seven years’ experience required by the Constitution to qualify to be named for the post.
The Bill, Dr Bonnici said would be giving the justice sector a reform that only came once in one or two generations.
He promised to work for consensus on the Bill to be achieved saying it should be above partisan politics.
Dr Bonnici said he had already held meetings and listened to proposals and would continue to do so.
The Bill, he said, was introducing the possibility for one to apply to become a member of the judiciary and it was creating a new authority with the obligation to advice the government.
He pointed out that, as the situation now stood, only members of certain clubs became members of the judiciary.
"We have to find a balance - the authority has to give advice and the government has to decide on that basis."
The Chamber of Advocates, he said, wanted the government to have the possibility to appoint members of the judiciary not based on the Commission's advice in exceptional cases.
BILL 'ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL, AUTOCRATIC AND FAKE'
Shadow minister Jason Azzopardi said the Bill was "anti-constitutional, autocratic and fake".
While the Opposition agreed with the part of the Bill which dealt on the pensions that should be payable to members of the judiciary, he noted the Bill was worrying to whoever had the justice sector at heart.
The discretion being given to the Prime Minister to appoint members of the judiciary using the Commission as a smokescreen was actually worse than the current system.
Under the proposal being made, Dr Azzopardi said,the Prime Minister could choose someone who the judicial committee rejected or who was not even considered by the committee and everything remained under wraps because the committee members were bound to secrecy.
This was institutionalising deceit because it was using the selection committee as a smokescreen, he said.
Had the Bill been passed on to him or the Opposition before publication in a confidential manner, a much better Bill would have been presented.
He noted that the Bill had actually been presented to the media before it was presented to the Opposition.
Dr Azzopardi also referred to an interview in The Sunday Times of Malta on February 21 in which the minister said about the experts opinion about the Bill that "they were wrong".
The minister denied having made that statement.
In a statement, the ministry referred to the The Sunday Times of Malta article, insisting that it "does not only tell a lie, but fabricates a lie about the minister's character".
"The minister did not say those words - plain and simple. Neither is it in his character to say those words. The merit of the issue was whether a court attorney is an attorney who exercises the legal profession. It later transpired that the court attorney does exercise the legal profession and that is identical to the advice given to the ministry by the Attorney General.... Comment is free, but facts are sacred."