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Jury suspended to await court’s decision on rights’ claim
Defence says trial by jury cannot take place until constitutional and European cases are heard
24 September 2013, 12:00am
Chris Mangion
Chris Mangion
1 min read
The trial by jury of Martin Dimech, who stands charged with drug trafficking, was put on hold on the same day it was supposed to start, pending a decision to see if a previous court decision breached the accused's fundamental rights.
On 30 August, Dimech's defence lawyers filed a court application at the Criminal Court asking that the jury is put on hold due to two other pending cases. A Constitutional Case over the right to a lawyer at interrogation stage was still pending, together with a case filed in the European Court of Human Rights over the AG's discretion to send the case for a trial by jury or not. Mr Justice Lawrence Quintano had thrown out the request.
A Ccnstitutional plea was subsequently filed, challenging the decision of Judge Quintano, however Mr Justice Anthony Ellul decreed that the decision was the prerogative of the Criminal Court.
Yesterday, the defence filed a second application at the Criminal Court asking to stop proceedings, to decide whether the previous decision by the same court not to stop the jury constituted a breach of human rights.
Mr Justice Lawrence Quintano upheld the request and suspended the trial by jury pending the decision.
Lawyers Franco Debono, Veronique Dalli, Joseph Gatt and David Camilleri are appearing for the accused.
Chris Mangion is MaltaToday’s photojournalist, joining the newspaper in 2013.
In 1995...
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In the meantime of course, tens of persons were called to the Criminal Court on jury service, tens of other people were served with a summons to appear in Court, tens of Police Officers and Court Experts were in Court to testify, and you get one lawyer who files a plea at the last minute to stop all the proceedings. This is what is causing so much distrust in the Court System. It is sickly for all these people to lose days of work, amounting to hundreds of days conjointly, maybe even postponing leave, holidays etc just to please his Lordship the Defense Lawyer who presents a delay plea at the last minute. Such lawyers should be fined the expense of all these people losing valuable working hours for the lawyer to look good in front of his client and exact a stiffer fee at the end of it all.
