MPs discuss next step in judge’s impeachment

The House Business Committee convened tonight to discuss the way MPs will proceed on the impeachment of Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco.

No decision was taken to establish when the House will debate the impeachment - the committee will be meeting again on the 27 January.

Lawyers representing Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco wrote to the Speaker arguing that the impeachment motion presented by then prime minister Lawrence Gonzi in December 2012 was no longer valid since Malta now had a new parliament and a new prime minister.

Farrugia Sacco has filed a Constitutional application which is yet to be decided, in which he called for the withdrawal of two members of the Commission for the Administration of Justice. But the CAJ has already found the impeachment motion proven.

Deputy Prime Minister Louis Grech said the committee should seek legal advice on the legal points raised, while deputy Opposition leader Mario de Marco said that since Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had already declared that the impeachment proceedings against Farrugia Sacco should proceed, this was a mere technicality.

The judge was found by the Commission for the Administration of Justice to have breached the code of ethics for the judiciary, after retaining his post as president of the Malta Olympic Committee.

He had been directed by the Chief Justice back in 2007 to step down from MOC president after the CAJ found a breach of ethics, but Farrugia Sacco ignored the directive.

Then in 2012, two Sunday Times of London undercover reporters posing as ticket resellers secretly filmed a meeting with Farrugia Sacco and MOC secretary-general Joe Cassar discussing ways of allegedly circumventing ticket resale rules for the Sochi Winter Games.

The International Olympics Committee's ethics commission found no wrongdoing had been committed by Farrugia Sacco but said that Cassar had tarnished the image of the games by entertaining the reporters' arguments.

The CAJ accepted the IOC's view of the incident, but said the undue attention from the undercover sting had exposed the confict of interest at hand, and that Farrugia Sacco's insistence in retaining his MOC role had undermined the public's trust in the judiciary.

The CAJ found that the impeachment motion, filed by former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi in late 2012, had been proven. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said he wanted MPs to proceed with the impeachment debate, as soon as possible.