Magistrate’s eligibility referred to judiciary watchdog after PN raises doubts on constitutionality

Two new magistrates, Ingrid Zammit Young and Caroline Farrugia Frendo, are set to be appointed magistrates - but their appointments have already generated controversy, with the government buckling under pressure from the Opposition to refer one appointment to the judiciary watchdog for legal advice.

Zammit Young, 43, is a lawyer for GO plc, the telecoms firm. Caroline Farrugia Frendo, 33, is a practising lawyer who is also the daughter of Speaker of the House Angelo Farrugia, a former Labour deputy leader.

Magistrates can only be appointed after having served in a court of law for seven years, which would mean Farrugia Frendo narrowly makes the cut, having obtained her warrant on 31 January, 2009. She graduated with a Magister Juris in international law in 2010, working as a private lawyer and since October 2015 as a court attorney under Judge Abigail Lofaro at the family court.

Zammit Young has a Masters in financial services and Magister Juris in international law, and since 1998 has worked for GO plc’s litigation office. She has served on the police licensing advisory board, the police exams board, and prison visitors’ board, as well having advised on the remission and restorative justice bills. She was until recently chairperson of the Employment Commission.

The Opposition has questioned whether the Constitution was respected in the appointments; shadow justice minister Jason Azzopardi in parliament ventured whether Zammit Young was eligible for magistrate, given that she was until recently chairperson of the Employment Commission. “The Constitution states that people aren’t eligible to be appointed as magistrates until three years after the culmination of public office,” he said.

According to the law, a member of the Employment Commission shall not, within a period of three years commencing with the day on which he last held office or acted as a member, be eligible for appointment to or to act in any public office.

Azzopardi also argued that Farrugia Frendo must have practised law for seven years before appointment. “Is the justice minister going to make a ministerial statement and ensure the public that the Constitution was respected?” the Opposition MP questioned.

Justice minister Owen Bonnici refused to make a ministerial statement about the two recent magisterial appointments. “If Jason Azzopardi wants to call me up, I am more than willing to have a private conversation with him,” he said. The reaction was condemned by Opposition leader Simon Busuttil, who urged Bonnici to put the public's mind at rest that the government had respected the Constitution. Speaker Anglu Farrugia took his leave on the matter, with deputy Speaker Censu Galea taking charge of the debate.

In an official statement, the justice minister later stated that the Constitution had no general prohibition on publicly appointed officials from being appointed to magistrates, but qualified the prohibition.

Bonnici said the appointment of the magistrates will be referred to the Commission for the Administration of Justice for its legal advice on the eligibility of Zammit Young. Bonnici said Farrugia Frendo's appointment was constitutionally sound.

The latest appointments will bring the number of women appointed to the bench in the last three years to six, following on the appointment of former deputy Attorney General Donatello Frendo Dimech, former Labour mayor Monica Vella, lawyer Charmaine Galea, and Labour candidate Joanne Vella Cuschieri. Magistrates Edwina Grima and Miriam Hayman were also promoted to judges in this legislature.

Under Labour, 13 new appointments of magistrates and judges took place, 62% of whom were women. 45% of the judiciary (20 out of 44) are now women.

"This is testament to government's work in putting more women in crucial positions in our society," justice minister Owen Bonnici said, who added that the new appointments will bring more efficiency to court proceedings. The Magistrates' Court itself handles 94% of all criminal cases.

The Maltese judiciary is also set for a major appointment when outgoing Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri will take his place in Luxembourg at the Court of First Instance.

The Chamber of Advocates reacted by expressing preoccupation at the way the justice minister had completely ignored the recommendations of the Bonello Commission on judges’ appointments.

“Every time an opportunity arises for the minister to implement these recommendations, and this opportunity is not taken, he is undermining the government’s credibility and will to implement this judicial reform. It undermines public confidence in the system,” Chamber spokesperson Louis de Gabriele said.

“Only the implementation of these recommendations, as promised by the minister, would testify to a political will to reform, concretely, the judicial system, not in words only but with actions.”

The commission for the holistic reform of the justice system, headed by former European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello, had disagreed with the way judges are appointed in Malta, lamenting the lack of transparency in the selection process and having no fixed criteria of determining who is the person most fit for the post.

The Bonello Commission proposed that it would be a specialised authority to make the selection process, while the government, as much as possible, acts according to the advice of that Authority when taking the final decision.

The Anglo-Saxon system works by selecting lawyers in private practice and then carrying out a selection process by an independent commission that recommends the appointment of a judge to the executive.

The Bonello Commission also proposed that lawyers who practice their profession in court be given preference. “A good judge must be well trained in procedural law and such experience gained by forensic practice.”