Judge facing impeachment files constitutional case

Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco has filed a constitutional case against the Prime Minister and the Commission for the Administration of Justice, claiming a breach of his right to a fair hearing.

The judge claims that a second decision by the CAJ confirming its original decision to impeach him without offering him a fair hearing, goes against his constitutional and human rights.

Farrugia Sacco is calling on the Constitutional Court to declare the Commission's report null, to declare that it breached his right to a fair hearing, and that the process has been vitiated by public pronunciations by various MPs, amongst them Opposition leader Simon Busuttil.

The judge was found to have 'misbehaved' by the CAJ for retaining his post as president of the Malta Olympics Committee in breach of the judiciary's code of ethics and contrary to a previous 2007 decision by the CAJ to have him resign the post; and for entertaining a discussion with two undercover reporters seeking ways of bypassing ticket rules and sell the MOC's allocation of Sochi winter games tickets somewhere else.

But the decision, communicated to the Speaker in January 2014 - over a year after then prime minister Lawrence Gonzi filed the motion against the judge back on 15 December 2012 - did not make it the House. The Speaker said the motion could not be carried on to a new legislature, and that Gonzi had resigned his eat, so the motion was invalid.

In a second impeachment motion filed by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, the CAJ refused to enter into a second round of hearings and instead reconfirmed its first decision.

Farrugia Sacco is now claiming that his impeachment motion has been prejudiced by statements made by Opposition leader Simon Busuttil, when he wrote in a tweet: "The Government has retuned a judge's impeachment into a farce.  Justice is the loser, and the judge gets off the hook scott-free.

The judge also says the ruling by the Speaker declaring Gonzi's motion "dead" also applies to the report of the CAJ.

He accused the CAJ of showing a "glaring bias" during the procedures against him, refusing to have him present the witnesses of his choice, and in the latest move to reconfirm its original decision without giving him a fair hearing.

Earlier this week, deputy prime minister Louis Grech told the House Business Committee that the Labour parliamentary group wanted to formally insert the impeachment motion into the so-called motion book, but warned against adopting a hasty attitude. "Government's position, which favours prudence rather than illogical haste, has also been expressed by constitutional law expert Judge Giovanni Bonello and Kevin Aquilina, Dean of the Faculty of Laws," Grech said.