Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/641079
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 17 FEbruArY 2016 5 News Mat thew agius Justice Minister Owen Bon- nici has defended his latest appointments to the judiciary, saying he had "no doubt" in the competence of magistrate nom- inee caroline Farrugia Frendo, the daughter of parliament's speaker, Anglu Farrugia. taking questions from the media after signing an agree- ment between the international Organisation for Migration and the irish embassy to strengthen the fight against human traf- ficking, Bonnici dismissed suggestions that experience as court attorneys did not count as open court experience. Farrugia Frendo has been a court attorney since October 2015 and only completes the minimum court practice re- quirement of seven years next month. Bonnici said the only limita- tion was about law yers' private practice, and that a pool of court attorneys had also been advocated in the Bonello report on judicial reform, where they were referred to as " jurists". "training is one of the most important factors. We need to invest in order to equip the ju- diciary and justice providers. We cannot be passive specta- tors but active protagonists in the improvements. And the government has invested heav- ily to have a judiciary comple- ment that ref lects this," Bon- nici said. "We already have two mag- istrates, one of whom is now a judge, who had been judicial assistants in the past. this precedent is comforting." Asked about the commission for the Administration of Jus- tice's reported opposition to the appointments, the minister pointed out that the dissenting members had not come for- ward or been identified in the reports, adding that the leader of the Opposition was also a member of the commission. Farrugia Frendo, who works in family court, has asked to be al- lowed to finalise her work there before being sworn in, Bonnici said. He did not exclude mak- ing further appointments be- fore reforming the system of appointing magistrates. He highlighted a 10% increase of women mem- bers of the judici- ary. More criminal cases were being dealt with by Mag- istrates' courts, due to the recent widening of the competence of those courts, Bonnici said, "so i felt that we needed more magistrates. With the current personnel the backlog is not going to end." Bonnici, who on Monday asked the House Business committee to improve the conditions of the judiciary, ap- pealed to the Opposition to "stop using justice as a politi- cal football ", asking them to be "sensitive to the reality of the courts." Bonnici does not rule out further judiciary appointments PN calls on government to refer magistrate's nomination to justice watchdog Chris Mangion tHe Nationalist Party has called on the Prime Minister to refer the nomination as magistrate of caroline Farrugia Frendo to the commission for the Administra- tion of Justice, in order to remove any doubt regarding the appoint- ment. shadow minister for justice Ja- son Azzopardi told a news confer- ence the government had nothing to lose by going to the commis- sion to clear the validity of nomi- nating 33-year-old Farrugia Frendo, a court attor- ney since October 2015. "High profile fig- ures have repeated- ly chal- l e n g e d this ap- p o i n t - m e n t and the govern- m e n t s h o u l d listen to their voice," Azzopardi ar- gued. speaking on television pro- gramme 'Report- er' on Monday, Judge emeritus Giovanni Bonello said the advice of the commis- sion should be sought. "Not doing so could lead to mayhem in the courts if judgments handed down by a magistrate are considered null and void by a constitutional court ruling further on," he told host saviour Balzan. the same concern was voiced by the dean of the faculty of laws and constitution expert Kevin Aqui- lina. "there are some grey areas in this appointment. Areas which need the advice of the commis- sion," Aquilina held. According to Jason Azzopardi "it is in the interest of the law- yer herself, of justice, and of so- ciety that we guarantee that the appointment is legal and constitu- tional. "What sense of justice can there be if the person occupying a role does so unconstitutionally? it would be a parody. " the PN also appealed to the President to safeguard the consti- tution, as it is the President's duty to see that no oaths of office are handed out unconstitutionally. "the government should at least respect those persons appointed consti- tutionally and listen to their calls for the con- s t i t u - tion to be up- held." A z - z o p - a r d i recalled t h a t w h i l e in the past, judi- cial assist- ants were ap- pointed to the role of magis- trate, the court attorneys' du- ties are different. "they do not hear witnesses, issue decrees or examine evidence, unlike judicial assistants". Also present at the news confer- ence was PN election candidate Aaron Micallef. He commented that the report produced by the Bonello commission has been ig- nored for 28 months. "the justice minister is ridiculing the Bonello commission and should desist from appointing new individuals until after the justice reform," he said. Continues froM page 1 "if they ac- tually grow, they will be very sparse and the fruit will probably be very small," he said. Zahra stressed that although most farmers had irrigation sys- tems to counter the dryness, rain- water generally reached deeper un- derground than irrigation systems could. "i expect even fruits like mel- ons and watermelons to become scarce this summer because there is not enough water stored under- ground." According to Jane Zammit, the dryness will also affect other crops like tomatoes, eggplants and pep- pers, because they normally re- quire constant hydration. Farmers also pointed out that the excessive use of ground water for crop irrigation this winter, might eventually create its own prob- lems. "the quality of the water avail- able has already changed, with it becoming increasingly saline al- ready. We can only imagine how much more saline it will get once demand rises drastically in the summer months," stephen Bartolo said, adding that as a result crops that are affected by salinity will be highly influenced. "Leafy vegetables like spinach and lettuce are very easily affected by salinity levels for instance," Bar- tolo said. Bartolo also highlighted a com- mon issue for the farmers this year; the dry weather has also meant that their costs rise given the nec- essary irrigation. in fact, a number of farmers said that despite the high yields this year, the excessive costs of irrigation meant that the effort was almost "not worth it" for farmers. "the warmth also meant that there were no natural inhibitors, and that all farmers had something close to a 100% success rate, which in itself might not sound like a bad thing, but it ultimately means we end up selling products at an exces- sively low price in order to remain competitive," Zammit said. While highlighting that the warm winter was not the only issue faced by farmers, particularly with the advent of big supermarkets, Agius said that he hoped farmers would receive some sort of compensa- tion or subsidies for the losses that farmers had to shoulder due to the weather. Dry weather drives farmers' costs up Your first click of the daY www.maltatoday.com.mt Jason Azzopardi (left) and election candidate Aaron Micallef Owen Bonnici Bountiful market – but fruit will have to be imported in summer PHOTOGRAPHY BY Chris mangion