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MaltaToday 5 September 2021

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2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 SEPTEMBER 2021 NEWS Judge refuses recusal after personal lawyer acts for one of the parties MATTHEW VELLA A family court judge has refused to recuse herself from a parental custody case where one of the parties is being defended by the judge's personal lawyer. The recusal request came after Madam Justice Jacqueline Pado- vani Grima was assigned a family case regarding the care and cus- tody of a minor. One of the parties' lawyers is Stephen Thake. It transpired during the case that Thake was the judge's personal lawyer in a separate case concerning her marital separation. In a previous civil case uncon- nected with this family court case, which Padovani Grima was also presiding over, Thake had also been lawyer to one of the parties. In that case, the judge herself, without being asked to do so, had requested that she be removed from the case and was later substituted. In view of this, an application for the recusal of Madam Justice Padovani Grima was filed in the acts of the family case. As the law stands, applications for recusal are decided upon by the same judges who are being asked to recuse themselves. In this case, Padovani Grima re- fused to recuse herself and a Constitutional Case was filed. The judge was asked by one of the parties to suspend the pro- ceedings before her until the Constitutional Case is decided, but she refused. The Constitutional Court was asked on three occasions to issue an interim measure, that would order Madam Justice Padovani Grima to stop hearing the fam- ily case until the Constitutional Court determines the case for her recusal. But the Constitutional Court refused these three requests and the judge is still hearing evidence in the family case. Foreign jurisdictions had changed their legislative frame- work after realising the conse- quences of an unjust refusal by a judge of a recusal request, forc- ing such requests to be heard by another judge, argued the fa- ther's lawyers. As the law stands in Malta, it is the presiding judge whose recus- al is requested, who decides on whether or not to recuse. The lawyers argued that this is in breach of one of the most ba- sic legal tenets – nemo judex in causa sua – which holds that no- body should be a judge in their own case. KURT SANSONE FOREIGN companies registered in Malta will face heightened scrutiny for serious tax evasion, the head of the money laun- dering watchdog has said. As efforts to get off the greylist inten- sify, the director of the Financial Intel- ligence Analysis Unit, Kenneth Farru- gia, has told TVM's Xtra Sajf the added scrutiny addresses concerns highlighted by international monitors on serious tax evasion. The recorded hour-long interview with programme host Saviour Balzan will be broadcast on Thursday. Malta was placed on the greylist by the Financial Action Task-Force (FATF) in June. The greylist includes jurisdictions subjected to increased monitoring be- cause of deficiencies in the fight against financial crime. The FATF flagged two issues linked to tax evasion – the need for the FIAU to focus intelligence gathering on serious tax evasion and increased scrutiny on companies using Malta to launder mon- ey derived from tax evasion. Farrugia said the FIAU had already started addressing serious cases of tax evasion by Maltese nationals and com- panies but is now increasing its scrutiny on foreign companies. "You cannot have 25,000 foreign com- panies registered here and all of them have perfect records," he said, adding the FIAU has drawn up a plan of action to fight serious tax evasion. "A distinction has to be made between companies that take advantage of Mal- ta's tax system for tax planning reasons and others that are simply set up to hide proceeds derived from tax evasion," he said. He ruled out a quick exit from the greylist but insisted the FIAU was try- ing to anticipate the timeframe agreed with the FATF. "It is not impossible to exit the greyl- ist but the least time that a country has spent on the greylist is 18 months. We are targeting 18 months or even less. We have a plan and strategy, and we are implementing it," Farrugia said. Malta agreed with the FATF to imple- ment a plan of action by January 2023. The FATF meets three times a year – February, June and October – which makes it almost impossible for the country to exit the greylist before the next general election, which is due at the latest by September 2022. Opposition leader Bernard Grech has pledged that a government led by him will take Malta off the greylist in three months. Heightened scrutiny on foreign companies using Malta to evade tax 'You cannot have 25,000 foreign companies registered here and all of them have perfect records' "It is not impossible to exit the greylist but the least time that a country has spent on the greylist is 18 months. We are targeting 18 months or even less." FIAU director Kenneth Farrugia

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