Court upholds injunction against Rizzo’s dismissal of newly reinstated police officers

Three former police officers reinstated to the corps after the Appeals Court found their dismissal had been unconstitutional, had filed a prohibitory injunction against the Prime Minister after the Commissioner of Police asked for them to be removed from the police force.

David Gatt, Ivan Portelli and Michael Buttigieg were informed in writing by Principal Permanent Secretary Godwin Grima that Commissioner of Police John Rizzo had presented a new report, urging their dismissal from the police force.

They were given 15 days to reply to the accusations, to which they answered by filing a prohibitory injunction against Grima, Rizzo and the Prime Minister.

According to Rizzo’s report, written in the aftermath of the Appeals Court decision, the Commissioner writes that “the clock has been turned back to 2001” and calls for their removal from the force “in the public interest.”

The three men are arguing that since their dismissal from the PSC was already found to have been unconstitutional, they cannot be dismissed again and that the accusations are already prescribed by 10 years.

By force of the Appeals Court ruling, the three men – today having taken up new professions – are de facto members of the police force, having been reinstated automatically.

Their case goes back to 2001, when Gatt, Portelli and Buttigieg received letters, signed by PM Eddie Fenech Adami, informing them they had been ‘removed’ from the Police Force.

No official reason was given for their dismissal, although Commissioner George Grech – who ironically resigned the same year after finding himself embroiled in a sex scandal – claimed in court that the three police officers had been in contact with suspected criminals.

However, in April 2004 Mr Justice Joseph Azzopardi ruled that the Public Service Commission had violated one of the principles of natural justice by neither informing the three officers that they were under investigation, nor allowing them the opportunity to defend themselves from the charges.

In the course of the hearings it transpired also that Gatt’s phone had been tapped without a necessary warrant.

In September, the Court of Appeal unreservedly upheld the verdict of the first court, which found that the Prime Minister and Police Commissioner Grech had acted unconstitutionally by ‘removing’ the three police officers from public service without allowing them the opportunity to defend themselves.

The officers have demanded an apology from former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami, while pointing out that Police Commissioner John Rizzo has already left himself with no option but to resign, having assumed “full responsibility” for the affair under oath in court.