Court director green-lighting most ‘right to forget’ requests

22 judgements have been removed from the online system of court decisions, on the basis of ‘right to forget’ requests made to the director general for Maltese courts.

The information was released on a Freedom of Information request by this newspaper.

Ever since a warranted lawyer had a conditional discharge removed from the online courts system that gives the public access to court records, it was revealed that justice minister Owen Bonnici had grated the courts director discretion on requests for the removal of judgements.

Up until 9 April 2018, there have been 43 requests for removal of judgements from the online system. However, these are not removed from the Court’s database.

“When there is a request for the removal of a judgement from the online system, this doesn’t mean that the judgement is removed from the Court’s database,” the laws courts’ data controller told MaltaToday in the FOIA reply.

“In fact the legal profession still has access to civil judgements through the LECAM system. With regards to criminal cases, work is being carried out this year so that these will also be accessible to the legal profession through the LECAM system, irrespective of the fact as to whether they are found on the online system. This process has been ongoing since summer 2017 and it expected to be completed later this year.”

Of the 43 submitted requests, 22 judgements were removed from the online system, and there was one request where the judgement was not removed from the online system while the remaining requests are still being evaluated.

The law courts’ data controller said he would not release the actual judgements to the press since this would run counter “to the essence of the principle of the right to be forgotten as enshrined in Article 17 of EU Data Protection Regulation”.

The minister for justice granted the law courts’ director-general permission to “use his discretion” on requests by people to have court judgements removed from the public database online.

The practice had been going on for some time on the database that since 2001 has published all judgements by the civil and criminal courts.

“When I became minister, I instructed Frank Mercieca to use his discretion and decide whether to accept requests from people who wished to have their record of criminal sentences deleted. This in respect to the right to be forgotten,” Bonnici said.

Worryingly, he has admitted there are no written criteria with regard to such requests.

“I just have confidence in Mr Mercieca’s discretion and it is up to him to decide if a court
sentence should be deleted or not from the database,” the
minister said.

The ministry is being taken to task after two law graduates were given a warrant to practise their profession despite having earned conditional discharges on theft charges.

The two students; Yanica Barbara, 28 of Attard, and Thomas Sant, 30 of Qormi, were given conditional discharges in late 2009 and mid-2010 respectively after being found guilty of theft a few years back. The Association of Judges and Magistrates said the two students had been “conditionally discharged and, at law, such a decision is not a conviction”, which means the charge does not get included in a criminal record in Malta, and nothing prevents the two graduates from being granted a warrant to practise law.

But it has emerged that while Sant’s judgement could still be retrieved from the public justice database, Barbara’s was removed after accepting her request to strike off the judgement from the database that dates back to 2001.

Bonnici said the law student had made her request to court registrar Frank Mercieca who obliged.

He also told The Times that Barbara’s was not an isolated case as the same happened with regard to other individuals who complained about negative consequences resulting from their court judgment being available online.

“The court registrar felt that enough time had passed,” Bonnici said.

Former Nationalist justice minister Chris Said expressed disbelief at the decision, saying “this has never even crossed our minds”.

Through their lawyer, John Bonello, Barbara and Sant said that “the conditional discharge they were awarded eight years ago is of no consequence to their application for admission to the Bar of Malta… Stating that a suspended imprisonment sentence had been meted is totally uncalled for and indeed unfair and prejudicial.”