Malta’s trial by jury system has been called into question, with a team of lawyers arguing its present form violates a defendant’s right to a fair trial.
In a constitutional application, lawyers for a man charged with murder highlight various shortcomings in Malta’s existing jury system, from opaqueness in the way jurors are shortlisted to the complete lack of legal training they receive ahead of a trial.
The application was filed by Marco Pace, known as il-Pinzell. He stands accused of murdering Victor Magri, iċ-Ċinku, almost 14 years ago. Mr Magri was found in his car in Ta’ Qali with four bullets in his chest.
The court application pokes holes in a decades-old system which includes no provisions for pre-trial legal training and provides next to no support or guidance for juries tasked with determining a person’s guilt or innocence. Maltese jurors are shortlisted at biannual meetings between the Police Commissioner, Attorney General and the chiefs of lawyers’ and legal procurators’ lobbies.
Short of adhering to basic criteria laid out in the criminal code – older than 21, no criminal record and so on – there is no way of knowing how this select group decides who features on these lists.
That method, Mr Pace’s lawyers note, stands in stark contrast to the random sampling used to select jurors in other jurisdictions such as the UK, where candidates are selected at random from the electoral register.
Furthermore, jurors in Maltese courts are given no legal training before trials.
Local jury members are left to their own devices
Legal concepts are not explained to them before they enter the courtroom, and it is only at the very end of a trial, once they have heard the various witnesses and claims, that the presiding judge sums up the proceedings for jurors and explains what is expected of them.
Led by Franco Debono, Mr Pace’s team of lawyers also highlight discrepancies in the guidance local jurors receive compared to elsewhere in Europe.
Countries such as Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Norway and Spain provide jurors with a list of questions to ask themselves while deliberating.
In Austria, for instance, jurors in a trial must reach their verdict on the basis of a detailed questionnaire.
The questions are intended to help guide jurors in their thinking, as a way of ensuring they reach a verdict based on the facts of the case, rather than external factors.
No such guidance is provided to local juries, with members left to their own devices.
Some countries, like Spain, even require juries to explain why they reached their final verdict.
While that is the exception rather than the rule, in a 2005 ruling the European Court of Human Rights nevertheless noted that both the accused and the public must be able to understand a jury verdict, calling this “a vital safeguard against arbitrariness”.
How are jurors selected in Malta?
To qualify for the jury list, individuals must be older than 21 and not be facing trial or bankruptcy proceedings. Anyone with a “notorious physical or mental defect” is also disqualified.
Certain categories of people – from MPs to top civil servants and teachers – are exempt from jury duty.
Jurors are drawn from the remaining pool. Each jury is made up of eight members and one foreman, who must have served on a jury previously to qualify for the role.
Though the prosecution or defence can object to a particular juror, successfully doing so is no mean feat: according to the law, both sides only get three questions per juror to try to determine whether they are biased or in any other way unfit to perform jury duty.