Government thwarts PN’s plans to aid wrongly convicted criminals

An attempt by the PN to empower the Court of Criminal Appeal to re-open all closed criminal cases failed, after justice minister Owen Bonnici warned that it will give too much power to the government of the day.

The private members’ Bill – tabled last June by shadow justice minister Jason Azzopardi – had requested that the Court of Criminal Appeal be given the right to re-open criminal cases that were ruled upon by the Court of Magistrates, a power it already enjoys for cases decided by juries.

The apparent discrimination in the law came to the forefront during the case of Emanuel Camilleri, a man who was jailed by the Court of Magistrates in 2012 after his daughter falsely accused him of sexually molesting her.

Camilleri’s conviction was overturned 400 days later after his daughter pleaded guilty to perjury, but he remained on the paedophilia register until September, when the Constitutional Court upheld his complaint that he had suffered a miscarriage of justice.

During the parliamentary debate, Azzopardi said that the Bill would essentially extend an existing right available to those suffering miscarriages of justice post-trial by jury to those suffering miscarriage of justice post-decision by the Court of Magistrates.

“The law has been in place since 1967, when the vast majority of criminal cases used to be decided by juries – when some juries used to start at 9am with the verdict announced three hours later,” he said.

He recounted how a priest told him that at least four innocent people are currently rotting in jail, because the evidence that proved their innocence only came to light months after they were sentenced.

“It is better if ten guilty men to walk free than if one innocent man is jailed,” Azzopardi said. “True liberals and progressives are in favour of this law, because there is no greater liberty than liberty itself. If we truly believe in equality, then how can we accept the current situation where there are different classes of innocent prisoners.

“As MPs, we cannot remain complicit in our passivity against people who were wrongly jailed.

However, Bonnici warned that the Bill will effectively give the Prime Minister the power to refer all closed criminal cases to the Court of Criminal Appeal for alleged miscarriage of justice.

“Had I proposed something similar, the Opposition would have kicked up a storm and claimed that the government wanted to give the Prime Minister the power to interfere in the course of justice,” he said. “This is a worrying stance from the Opposition. Here we are trying to create barriers between ministers and public administration, and they now want to break down barriers between politicians and the justice system.”

Moreover, he said that legal remedies already exist in the rare cases where people like Camilleri have suffered from a miscarriage of justice.

Emanuel Camilleri spent over 400 days in jail after his daughter falsely accused him of molesting her

“When new evidence surfaced, Camilleri had requested that [magistrate] Consuelo Scerri Herrera look into the case. A few hours later, she launched an inquiry which ruled that there was a high possibility that he had been wrongy jailed. While I agree that the Constitutional Court’s case was deferred for too long, Camilleri was released from jail pending its decision.”

He pounced on Azzopardi’s claim that innocent people are currently serving jail time, warning that it is “extremely serious” for an MP to know of such cases and not suggest the existing legal remedies.    

Opposition MP Francis Zammit Dimech questioned whether Bonnici was in favour of removing the Criminal Court of Criminal Appeal’s power to re-open criminal cases that were ruled upon by jury.

“The law should either be applied across the board or not at all. As it stands, it discriminates between people who suffered injustice at the hands of a jury and those who suffered injustice at the hands of the Court of Magistrates.”

Labour MP Michael Falzon warned that the Bill would throw into doubt the concept of the separation of judiciary and executive powers, while tourism minister Edward Zammit Lewis mocked it as a “legal pudina”.