Parliament’s decision to halt impeachment proceedings against a judge pending the Constitutional Court’s outcome “conspired” to reinforce the conclusion the judiciary became “wholly untouchable” once appointed.
Giovanni Bonello, former European Court of Human Rights Judge who was appointed by the government to head judicial reform, felt the outcome in the parliamentary motion to remove Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco was “totally predictable”. “I personally never had any doubt that the outcome would be anyhow different,” Dr Bonello told The Sunday Times of Malta.
On Friday, during a House Business Committee meeting, the government insisted it was “prudent” for Parliament to await the court’s decision before proceeding with the impeachment motion, despite the Opposition’s outcry that shelving the motion led to a “dangerous precedent”. Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco, who turns 65 in August, is fighting tooth and nail against his impeachment and has mounted a legal challenge against the Commission for the Administration of Justice, which found prima facie evidence of misbehaviour.
Dr Bonello said Parliament’s decision created another precedent, to confirm others before it, that the law as it stood favoured “its own defeat rather than its observance”. “The fact that in over 50 years, not one single impeachment has been concluded successfully should be a clear indication that the system is intrinsically self-defeating.
Implications ‘very serious’
“That is one of the reasons why a far stricter scrutiny should be applied before a judge’s appointment, rather than after he has shown his delinquency in office,” he said.
Asked if he saw any merit in the view taken by Parliament to shelve the motion pending the court’s outcome, Dr Bonello reiterated that “nothing in the Constitution, or in any other law, suggests that the House cannot proceed with an impeachment motion when a court case has been filed”.
The fact that in over 50 years not one single impeachment has been concluded successfully should be a clear indication that the system is intrinsically self-defeating
He added: “The House can only defend a decision to suspend impeachment proceedings on political considerations of prudence, not on constitutional considerations of legality.”
Commenting on whether Parliament was the supreme court of the land, Dr Bonello said: “Parliament is not a court, superior or inferior, and should never turn itself into one. These hybrids only produce human rights’ disasters.” Meanwhile, a senior political source said experience had always taught him that the supreme judge was Parliament.
“Parliament obviously needs to show respect to the courts and vice versa, but all this has now finished... It is really sickening. These people have ruined the moral fibre of this country.”
The issue revolves around Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco’s decision to stay on as Malta Olympic Committee president despite being told by the commission in 2007 that this post was incompatible with his judicial duties. The Commission for the Administration of Justice found that, although the judge was not involved in the illicit sale of winter Olympic Games tickets – raised by The Sunday Times of London’s investigations in 2012 – the negative publicity he received by international media over the issue was the result of his defiance of the 2007 ruling.
The source said the implications of Parliament’s decision were “extremely serious” and it was unfortunate that the government was employing such delaying tactics at a time when the country needed to send a strong message to the judiciary.
“The whole process has been undermined from beginning to end.”