Labour MP holds back from comment on calls for judge to resign

Shadow justice minister José Herrera is withholding comment on calls for Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco to resign, pending an inquiry by the Commission for the Administration of Justice.

Pressure is building up on Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco, after the Prime Minister on Sunday said he should resign in the wake of findings of the International Olympics Commission ethics commission.

Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday he expected Farrugia Sacco to resign because the judiciary's credibility was at stake.

But Herrera said he prefers waiting for a statement from the Commission for the Administration of Justice on the matter.

"One should wait for the CAJ's findings. When asking for the resignation of a high-level civil servant or functionary, it is always more prudent to wait for the findings of such a body, otherwise I would be prejudicing the case," Herrera said.

When pressed on whether he disagreed or not with the Prime Minister's explicit call on Farrugia Sacco to resign because of the shadow cast on the judiciary, Herrera was equally non-committal on Gonzi's statement.

"The prime minister has his way of doing things and reaching certain conclusions when he wants... I'm not here to judge what the prime minister says. When allegations are made against ministers or civil servants, it inadvertently affects the institution they represent. But we would be prejudicing the situation by passing judgement before the Commission's findings."

Farrugia Sacco is embroiled in an Olympic ticketing controversy, following an investigation by two undercover reporters from The Sunday Times of London who posed as authorised tickets resellers. The IOC's ethics commission said this week that Farrugia Sacco had entertained the two reporters' offer by allowing them to "prove their point" on how to skirt rules regarding the sale of Olympics tickets for the Sochi winter games. MOC secretary-general Joe Cassar was said to have "tarnished" the reputation of the Games with his involvement in the same talks.

The matter is currently under inquiry by the Commission of the Administration of Justice.

This is not the first time that the government fires a missive against Farrugia Sacco - the judge had refused to step down from the post of MOC president when the Commission for the Administration of Justice alerted him to the possibility of an ethical conflict due to the MOC's regular dealings with business sponsorships.

Farrugia Sacco has reacted to Gonzi's call for his resignation, saying the prime minister was "talking nonsense".

"The Prime Minister either said what he said for his own reasons, or else he doesn't know the facts. 49 European countries yesterday said nothing improper happened, and that only the procedures were wrong. Now if we'd like to make up our minds without knowing what went on, we can be mediaeval and do that," the judge told the Times of Malta.

"I'll go on working as usual. After all the corruption allegations, it turns out none of it is true. The only thing the IOC decision found was that the English journalists wanted to prove that not everything in the sports world was clean, and that they had proven that."

Farrugia Sacco has sued the Times of Malta for libel on its reports of the Sunday Times undercover sting, and now plans to take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sports, in Lausanne, Switzerland.

However he has admitted that he was advised there are no grounds for him to file a suit against the UK journalists.