A renal patient who underwent a kidney transplant in 2014 has filed constitutional proceedings claiming his rights were breached during investigations over his cannabis trafficking case.
Bang in the middle of his transplant ordeal – in 2013 – the patient was allegedly caught with cannabis and criminal proceedings were instituted against him.
But last week, he filed an application in the First Hall of the Civil Court, in its constitutional jurisdiction, claiming his human rights had been breached because of the way the police handled his case.
Through his lawyer Jason Grima, he explained that the police had carried out a search of his home in May 2013. According to evidence heard in court, an expert confirmed that a total of 167.52 grams of cannabis were found. He was eventually charged with drug trafficking as well as the possession of cannabis in circumstances denoting it was not for his personal use.
He should have been considered a vulnerable person
He claimed that he was taken into custody after five hours of dialysis in hospital. Prior to his interrogation, he was given the right to consult his lawyer, which he did.
The following day, the police took him in for a second statement but this time he was not given his right to consult a lawyer. During this interrogation, the police asked him several direct questions and he assumed responsibility for the cannabis and even admitted to having trafficked the drug.
But Dr Grima is arguing that the court should ignore these statements as his client should have been considered as a vulnerable person following his dialysis treatment.
He is also arguing that the simple fact that he was not assisted by a lawyer during the actual interrogation was enough to find that his client’s rights had been breached.
The legal provision for a lawyer to assist clients during interrogations has only been recently proposed and still needs to be discussed by Parliament.
Dr Grima quoted several European Court judgments which have already ruled that “…the rights of the defence will, in principle, be irretrievably prejudiced when incriminating statements made during police interrogations without access to a lawyer are used for a conviction”.
Moreover, Dr Grima claimed that the police inspector had told his client that he would benefit from a reduced punishment if he cooperated with the investigations. This, the lawyer argued, was in breach of his client’s right to a fair hearing.
He therefore called on the court to declare that his client’s rights had been breached and order the withdrawal of the police statements, apart from other remedies it deems fit in the circumstances.
matthew.xuereb@timesofmalta.com