Magistrate elected on watchdog that had rebuked her for ethics breach

Magistrates in Malta’s courts of law have elected Consuelo Scerri Herrera as a representative on the judiciary’s watchdog, after she was herself rebuked by the same commission.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera was elected by first count by her colleagues, as one of two magistrates who sit on the Commission for the Administration of Justice.

The Commission is chaired by the President of the Republic, and includes the Chief Justice and Attorney General, as well as two judges and two magistrates, the president of the Chamber of Advocates, and two members appointed by the Prime Minister and Opposition leader.

But only recently Scerri Herrera herself was investigated by the same watchdog, after earning a rebuke following a six-year review of allegations made against her by a former friend of hers: the late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Scerri Herrera was indeed found to have breached the judiciary’s code of ethics by compromising her integrity and personal dignity, by attending parties and seeking public exposure, and even entertaining the amorous advances of a police inspector.

The decision had summed up a saga first ignited by Caruana Galizia in her blog back in January 2010, with a fiery campaign against the magistrate and her companion Robert Musumeci, a former Nationalist Party mayor.

The feud was kindled when Scerri Herrera had gloated at a dinner party at her home, that the press would break the news of a domestic violence report filed by Caruana Galizia’s husband against the journalist.

When Caruana Galizia got wind of the gossip from one of Scerri Herrera’s guests, she struck hard, publishing photos of the partying magistrate on her birthday, which had been posted on Facebook.

It rebuked Scerri Herrera for attending parties during which invitees would include political party members, or in the case of her own birthday party, a politician who was involved in a case she presided

Allegations she published on her blog became the subject of the Commission’s investigation. But the Commission later found no evidence of personal favouritism towards Musumeci, or that she had visited Singapore on an unnecessary work trip.

Instead it rebuked Scerri Herrera for attending parties during which invitees would include political party members, or in the case of her own birthday party, a politician who was involved in a case she presided. Facebook photos publicly available showed the magistrate letting her hair down at her birthday party, with guests that included politicians from all sides (her brother is the Labour minister José Herrera) and businessmen.

This alone made it incumbent on her to anticipate that the presence of such people compromised her.

The Commission also noted that interviews the magistrate gave to three separate magazines between 2003 and 2008 had portrayed her as seeking the public’s favour. And central to the scorned friendship between Caruana Galizia and Scerri Herrera was the fate of a string of love letters from a police inspector.

The Commission had said Scerri Herrera compromised herself by entertaining the letters from police inspector Dominic Micallef, and showing them to her old school-friend Greta Gatt, who passed them on to Caruana Galizia.

Caruana Galizia used the letters to point out that the couple had had a long love affair. The Commission told the magistrate she should have repudiated the advances and destroyed the letters instead of passing them on to Gatt.

In its conclusion, the Commission said the judiciary was required to behave in a way that no shadow could be cast on their integrity and personal dignity, or in some way that their independence and impartiality could be placed in doubt.