Updated | ‘Muscat undermining impeachment’ - PN • CAJ could face fresh challenge

Updated with PN reaction: Muscat has undermined public trust in the judiciary

The Commission for the Administration of Justice could be facing a new legal quandary in dealing with a new motion for the impeachment of Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday filed the new motion after the Speaker of the House ruled the original motion filed by Lawrence Gonzi, now no longer an MP, could not be carried on into the new legislature.

FULL REPORT Why judge facing impeachment faces new motion

But with the CAJ having already found prima facie evidence of misbehaviour, proving Gonzi's impeachment motion to be founded, it is likely that the same commission members will not be able to investigate the cash afresh.

"The principle of double jeopardy means Farrugia Sacco, as a defendant, cannot be tried again on the same charges," a legal observer privy to the workings of the Commission told MaltaToday.

"What has to be seen is whether Farrugia Sacco will demand the recusal of all members of the Commission who proved the impeachment motion - he could ask the courts to rule on whether he can be 'tried' by the same people that have already reached a decision."

Farrugia Sacco lost an appeal on the Constitutional Court's decision not to recuse two members whom he said were politically biased because of their relationship to Lawrence Gonzi, as the proponent of the impeachment motion.

In demanding a recusal, if Farrugia Sacco resorts to the courts, he will ask that all members of the CAJ do not hear his case, forcing the President of the Republic - as chair of the CAJ - to appoint new members.

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said the Speaker's ruling and the new impeachment motion had got the judge "off the hook scot free".

"We are concerned with the political [aspect]," Busuttil told MaltaToday when asked about the prospect of the entire recusal of the CAJ.

"The government is deliberately creating obstacles for an immediate impeachment of Lino Farrugia Sacco. This goes flagrantly against Joseph Muscat's promise to respect the conclusions of the Commission and get on with it.

"Instead, he is starting the entire process from scratch in order to delay everything until Lino Farrugia Sacco retires in August," the PN leader said.

In a statement issued later on in the day, the PN said Farrugia Sacco would not be removed before his retirement in August.

"This decision has brazenly broken Muscat's promise to bind himself to the decision of the Commission for the Administration of Justice... the prime minister and Labour are now accomplices to Farrugia Sacco's bad behaviour."

The PN is insisting that the motion for impeachment could carry on to the next legislature. The last instance of such an impeachment was that of Judge Anton Depasquale, whose motion was proposed by prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami and then carried on into the 1996 legislature when Fenech Adami was Opposition leader.

But the PN said the new impeachment motion was "clear proof that the prime minister and Labour are ready to do anything to save Lino Farrugia Sacco, who is the father of Labour candidate David Farrugia Sacco."

The PN said Muscat was well aware that a new motion would have meant starting the investigation afresh. "This is not in the best interest for the administration of justice, and chips away at the respect and trust the public should have in the country's judiciary. Muscat did not have the political courage to do what's right, and remove Farrugia Sacco."

Farrugia Sacco had twice asked the Commission for the Administration of Justice - first after Labour's election in March 2013, and then after the resignation of Lawrence Gonzi as MP - whether the motion could be carried over to the next legislature.

But the Commission steamed ahead with its decision, which confirmed prima facie misbehaviour by the judge when he retained his post as president of the Malta Olympic Committee, in breach of the judiciary's code of ethics; and which opened him up to the questionable meeting in which he was filmed by two undercover Sunday Times of London discussing the resale of Sochi Winter Games tickets.

The Times of Malta, whom Farrugia Sacco has sued for libel for reporting the Sunday Times of London's report, also accused the government in its leader of having undermined the impeachment.

"By acting in this way, the government's only achievement is to undermine public confidence in the parliamentary process. Both major parties agreed on the method used to determine Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco's case. Both major parties agree that, as a result of that, he should be impeached."