Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1156727
3 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 AUGUST 2019 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The Grech family also claimed they had not been informed of the jury date set for the 2 September, and that they were only informed by third parties. The trial is also expected to summon as witness Jordan Azzopardi, the alleged drug lord whose Wardija hide-out was raided in a major sting operation earlier this year. Azzopardi is also represented by Debono. This is not the first time that Debono requests constitutional scrutiny of Malta's trial by jury system: in 2018, he argued that the system violated a de- fendant's right to a fair trial, in this case Marco Pace, known as 'il-Pinzell', who stands accused of murdering Victor Magri, aka 'iċ-Ċinku', almost 14 years ago. A decision on that constitutional case has not yet been reached. As in that court application, Debono pokes holes in a jury system which pro- vides no pre-trial legal training or guid- ance for jurors, who get shortlisted at biannual meetings between the Police Commissioner, Attorney General and the chiefs of lawyers' and legal procura- tors' lobbies. Debono is making similar represen- tations for the family of murder victim Roderick Grech, aka 'ic-China', who was killed in the early hours of 29 March 2017 when he met Etienne Bartolo to settle payment for drugs he had sold him a day earlier. But the drug runner's luck ran out when in an ensuring argu- ment, Grech was stabbed several times. A passer-by found Grech on the ground on Tumas Fenech street, in Birkirkara, at 1:10am, and while giving him First Aid assistance, heard Grech utter the words "vojt… vojt" – the accused's nick- name. Now, just two weeks before Bartolo is expected to face a trial by jury for the murder, Grech's family is insisting that jurors in Malta are not equipped to be able to reach a proper verdict. "They have a lack of training which itself breaches the fundamental rights of the accused and the parte civile [the victim's family] to have this case heard in the most judicious and impartial of ways," Debono stated in the Grech fam- ily's constitutional application. Malta's judicial system indeed does not provide a system in which jurors can be prepared to reach a verdict through a system of specific questions as employed in Spain, Russia, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Norway and Switzer- land. In the protest, Debono said that even former Attorney General Anthony Borg Barthet had remarked that jurors "don't have the experience to make certain de- cisions… the jury are not academically trained and [decisions] can be taken emotionally." Debono added that in 2010 the Euro- pean Court of Human Rights [in Tax- quet vs Belgium] declared that, while verdicts reached without motivating questions do not breach the right to a fair hearing, "precise questions to the jury were an indispensable requirement in order for the applicant to understand any guilty verdict reached against him." The Taxquet case had indeed prompt- ed legal changes in France, where now jurors are required to produce a state- ment of the main items of evidence against the defendant which persuaded them of each of the charges against the accused. Debono said in his protest that Mal- tese jurors are not given an explana- tion of the legal principles employed throughout a trial, nor do they have "the necessary acumen" to deliberate and finally decide in an impartial way. He added that not even Maltese law explains how jurors should be selected for such trials. "The way a jury is se- lected is not laid down in the law… in the UK and the USA, jurors are selected at random… in the USA a jury com- mission and in the UK a central sum- moning bureau are responsible for the random selection of jurors from a list of registered voters. This transparency is not employed in the Maltese system, and therefore this system breaches fun- damental human rights." In a second point of the constitu- tional application, Debono also says the Grech family's rights will be breached in the upcoming trial because they can- not participate in the prosecution, as is done in the compilation of evidence stage that precedes the trial. The only point in which the Grech family's lawyer can intervene is when the Court is deliberating on the punish- ment requested by the Attorney Gen- eral, as the chief prosecutor. "This is a very a limited form of par- ticipation… the injured party has every interest to be involved in an active way in the proceedings of a trail by jury. "Indeed this is a total contrast to the compilation of evidence stage, in which the parte civile is participating in a di- rect way by asking any witness it wants any question, and make direct submis- sions on legal points." Maltese juries In Austria, jurors in a trial must reach their verdict on the basis of a detailed questionnaire. The questions are in- tended to help guide jurors in their thinking as a way of ensuring they reach a verdict based on the facts of the case rather than external factors. Some countries, like Spain, even require juries to explain why they reached their final verdict. In Malta, legal concepts are not ex- plained to jurors before they enter the courtroom, and it is only at the very end of a trial, once they have heard the vari- ous witnesses and claims, that the pre- siding judge sums up the proceedings for jurors and explains what is expected of them. Jurors in Malta have to be individuals older than 21 and not be facing trial or bankruptcy proceedings. Anyone with a "notorious physical or mental defect" is also disqualified. Certain categories of people – from MPs to top civil servants and teach- ers – are exempt from jury duty. Each jury is made up of eight members and one foreman, who must have previously served on a jury to qualify for the role. Both the prosecution and the defence can object to a particular juror, but only by asking a maximum of three ques- tions to each juror to try to determine whether they are biased or unfit to per- form jury duty. The family of murder victim Roderick Grech (left) has filed a constitutional application saying the jury system employed in the Maltese judicial system breaches their right to a fair hearing; the trial by jury of the alleged murderer, Etienne Bartolo, is expected to start on 2 September. Alleged drug lord Jordan Azzopardi (below) is expected to be a witness in the case Jury system in the dock ahead of Bartolo trial "Even former Attorney General Anthony Borg Barthet said jurors 'don't have the experience to make certain decisions… the jury are not academically trained and [decisions] can be taken emotionally'."