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6 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 17 APRIL 2019 NEWS MATTHEW AGIUS TWO of the men accused of murdering Daphne Caruana Galizia had their prospects of being released on bail with elec- tronic tags dashed after a court heard how the only inmates who were on parole are eligible for electronic tagging. Lawyer William Cuschieri, appearing for the brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio in Constitutional proceedings demanding their release from custody, argued that he had made identical requests for bail in several instances, and that these were being heard by a limited number of judges who had repeatedly expressed their intention to deny bail. Madam Justice Lorraine Schembri Orland, however, said she did not feel that the evidence showed that there "is some imputation of prejudice on the part of the judges who heard the preceding requests". It today's sitting it emerged that while the electronic tag- ging of convicts on parole was allowed, the same did not ap- ply to suspects in preventative custody. Director of Prisons Alex Dalli took the stand, confirm- ing that the Degiorgio broth- ers had been held in Corra- dino Corrective Facility (CCF) since December 2017. Asked about the electronic tagging procedure, he said that the behaviour and reha- bilitation of prisoners who are sentenced and not under preventive arrest or on bail, are examined by an advisory board towards the end of their sentence. There are schemes for pre- release candidates involving community work he said. At the moment, the prison au- thorities are carrying out a test project involving inmates ap- proved by the prison leave ad- visory board in which they are fitted with electronic tags in ankle bracelets and monitored by officials from CCF. The sys- tem doesn't exist for people on bail, he said, however. Lawyer Victoria Buttigieg from the Office of the Attor- ney General asked the witness to state whether the accused were still under arrest or sen- tenced. They were under ar- rest, the witness said. "So, this method [electron- ic tagging] doesn't exist for those under preventive ar- rest?" Buttigieg asked. Dalli replied in the affirmative. Times of Malta news edi- tor Matthew Xuereb was also summoned to testify today but did not appear when called. The court instructed the po- lice to ensure that he testified in the next sitting, which will be on 23 May. magius@mediatoday.com.mt Court hears witnesses in Degiorgio brothers' request for bail with electronic tags Director of Prisons Alex Dalli told the court that electronic tagging was only allowed in cases where prisoners are released on parole and not when they are under preventative arrest The Degiorgio brothers have made several requests for bail since being arrested in December 2017 MASSIMO COSTA AN electronic registry contain- ing the medicinal prescriptions of all patients using the Pharma- cy of Your Choice Scheme was unveiled on Tuesday. The registry will give doctors access to their patients' medici- nal records at any time and al- low them to change medication details as the need arises. Through the system, the doc- tors will also be able to register new patients and apply for their Schedule V document – known as the Yellow Card – which they require to receive free medicine under the POYC scheme. The patients could then pick up their Yellow Card without having to take any papers with them, since all necessary in- formation would be accessible electronically by any doctor, nurse or carer. Health Minister Chris Fearne said the new electronic system would be benefitting both the 143,000 patients using POYC, as well as the government. "Patients will receive a better service with less inconvenience, while the government will waste less medicine through incorrect dosage listings, since the registry will contain all the updated in- formation," Fearne said. Over the next year, the gov- ernment plans to make the elec- tronic registry available to the 221 pharmacies in Malta which are POYC-registered. This should further facilitate the dis- pensing of medicines from such pharmacies. The POYC scheme now dis- tributes 250 million medicinal products a year, and has a €28 million budget. Fearne also announced that the Yellow Cards' validity will now be able to be extended from the previous maximum of five years to 10, at doctors' discretion. "There are patients who re- main on the same medication and dosage for many years, so the government has launched a new initiative to extend the Yel- low Card's maximum validity period to 10 years, reducing the number of card renewal applica- tions by 3,000 a month," Fearne highlighted. Electronic registry will allow doctors to view POYC meds Health minister Chris Fearne (above) said the new centralised electronic registry will list the medicines prescribed for patients on the Pharmacy of Your Choice scheme

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