Government set to nominate Zammit Lewis for judge at the EU’s General Court

The Prime Minister is set to nominate Labour MP Edward Zammit Lewis to serve as judge on the General Court of the EU, according to senior government sources.

Zammit Lewis will be filling in the post vacated by Ramona Frendo, who will now serve as judge on the European Court of Justice.

Zammit Lewis served as justice minister until February 2022 when parliament was dissolved. He had been instrumental in implementing several recommendations for constitutional and judicial reform made by the Venice Commission.

However, he was omitted from Cabinet after the election held in March 2022, which returned a Labour government. He currently serves as chairperson of parliament’s Foreign and European Affairs Committee. Zammit Lewis is a lawyer by profession, having practised in the civil, commercial, adminstrative and constitutional fields.

His eventual departure will require a casual election on the 8th District, although government sources said Robert Abela is likely to go down the route of co-option. The Prime Minister adopted a similar strategy in the past to co-opt Clyde Caruana, Miriam Dalli, Jonathan Attard, Oliver Scicluna and Andy Ellul in the pre-2022 legislature and Randolph de Battista in the current legislature.

Since 2013, Zammit Lewis served as minister in various portfolios, including tourism, European affairs and equality.

Zammit Lewis came under fire prior to 2022 after his closeness to Yorgen Fenech, the businessman accused of masterminding the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder, was exposed in a cache of leaked WhatsApp chats. The conversations had taken place before Fenech’s involvement in the murder was publicly known.

But Zammit Lewis was also in the line of fire for disparagingly describing Labour voters as ‘Ġaħan’ in one of the WhatsApp conversations. He later apologised for the remark.

Malta gets to nominate two judges to the EU’s General Court. Frendo took up her post at the General Court in 2019 and last month was approved by a panel of judges to serve as a judge at the ECJ, succeeding Judge Peter G. Xuereb.

Malta’s other nominee at the General Court is Eugene Buttigieg, who was appointed judge in 2012 and whose current term ends next year.

Judges on the General Court are appointed for a renewable term of six years.

Zammit Lewis will first have to be cleared by a committee set up by the Justice Minister in Malta, which evaluates any applications it receives for the post. The nominee will eventually face a grilling in Luxembourg before being appointed.

PN says nomination is an insult 

Meanwhile, Nationalist Party justice spokesperson Karol Aquilina described Zammit Lewis's nomination as "an insult" to all those who believe in justice. He said the Prime Minister should withdraw Zammit Lewis's nomination and instead ensure the choice is based on merit rather than political convenience.

Aquilina insisted that Zammit Lewis formed part of a government that was condemned by three judges presiding the Caruana Galizia public inquiry, for creating a climate of impunity that enabled the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia to take place. The PN spokesperson said Zammit Lewis was revealed to be an "intimate friend" of Yorgen Fenech and had described former PN leader Simon Busuttil as a "threat to the rule of law" when he was pressing hard for an investigation into 17 Black, the secretive Dubai company owned by Fenech.