Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1159832
7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 25 AUGUST 2019 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA THE trial by jury of Etienne Bartolo, 38, accused of mur- dering 26-year-old drug run- ner Roderick Grech, will go ahead despite a human rights claim filed by the family of the murder victim, a judge has ruled. Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera ruled that the murder trial should go ahead despite the Grech's family application last week saying the jury that would try Bar- tolo was not well-equipped to reach a proper verdict and would therefore breach their right to a fair hearing. The mother and sisters of Grech, aka 'ic-China', stabbed to death by Bartolo, aka 'il- Vojt', filed their claim just two weeks before Bartolo goes to trial on 2 September. The Grechs' lawyer, Franco Debono, who last week did not release a comment on the request when asked by Mal- taToday, had already filed a similar constitutional case in 2018 for his client, the ac- cused in a murder trial. But the Grech family claimed they had not been informed of the jury date, and that they were only informed by third parties. The trial is, in fact, 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 Debono requests constitu- tional scrutiny of Malta's trial by jury system: in 2018, he ar- gued that the system violated a defendant'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 deci- sion on that constitutional case has not yet been reached. In both court applications, Debono pokes holes in the Maltese jury system which provides no pre-trial legal training or guidance for ju- rors, who get shortlisted at bi- annual meetings between the Police Commissioner, Attor- ney General and the chiefs of lawyers' and legal procurators' lobbies. Debono made similar rep- resentations for the fam- ily of murder victim Roder- ick Grech, killed in the early hours of 29 March 2017 when he met Bartolo to settle pay- ment for drugs he had sold him a day earlier. But the dealer's luck ran out when in an ensuing argument, Grech was stabbed several times. In their court request, Grech's family insisted that jurors in Malta have a lack of training, necessary to have the case heard "in the most judi- cious and impartial of ways." Malta's judicial system in- deed does not provide a sys- tem in which jurors can be prepared to reach a verdict through a system of specific questions as employed in Spain, Russia, Austria, Bel- gium, Ireland, Norway and Switzerland. In the protest, Debono said that even former Attorney General Anthony Borg Bar- thet had remarked that jurors "don't have the experience to make certain decisions… the jury are not academically trained and [decisions] can be taken emotionally." In 2010 the European Court of Human Rights [in Taxquet vs Belgium] declared that, while verdicts reached with- out 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 in- deed prompted legal changes in France, where now jurors are required to produce a statement of the main items of evidence against the defend- ant which persuaded them of each of the charges against the accused. Maltese juries In Austria, jurors in a trial must reach their verdict on the basis of a detailed ques- tionnaire. The questions are intended 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 explained to jurors before they enter the courtroom, and it is only at the very end of a trial, once they have heard the various witnesses and claims, that the presiding judge sums up the proceedings for jurors and explains what is expected of them. Murder trial will not be postponed Murder victim Roderick Grech (left) and Etienne Bartolo, accused of his murder