Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/643092
TIM DIACONO JUDGE emeritus Giovanni Bonello, formerly of the Euro- pean Court of Human Rights, has thrown his weight behind the Prime Minister's call for a constitutional amendment that could allow technocrats who are not MPs to be appointed as min- isters. "Ministers should ideally be managers who know their port- folio inside and out, and I have serious reservations on how well lawyers can occupy managerial roles," he said on Radju Malta's Ghandi Xi Nghid. "Do careers of dealing with liti- gation, contracts and testaments grant lawyers the necessary skills to lead complex structures that require them to deal with fre- quent time bombs? We [lawyers] excel in many areas, but manage- ment is simply not one of them." Muscat's opinion on techno- crats was published in Prof. Da- vid Attard's second volume on constitutional and human rights law, echoing similar views as his predecessor, Lawrence Gonzi. "Malta would benefit from an American system where minis- ters are elected from outside the legislature and Parliament should seriously consider this proposal," Muscat said. Not one to mince his words, Giovanni Bonello has also warned that the Attorney Gen- eral is stuck in a "schizophrenic" role serving as both the govern- ment's legal advisor and as the State's prosecutor. "No matter how brilliant the AG is, he cannot be expected to keep switching hats from an ad- visor serving as the government's client to a public prosecutor who is supposed to act independently of the government," Bonello said, referring to delicate political cas- es where he actually acts simul- taneously as advisor and public prosecutor. "It appears the poor AG is stuck in continuous conf lict between two roles – one that is completely dependent on the government and another that is supposed to be independent." Indeed, the splitting of the two roles was one of 450 proposals for judicial reform that were present- ed to the government at the end of 2013 by a commission spear- headed by Bonello. The commis- sion was set up in the first place by justice minister Owen Bon- nici, and indeed Bonello praised the minister as a man who "pos- sesses the will to cure the illness at the heart of the judicial sys- tem". However, he was pessimistic at the chances that all of his propos- als would eventually be imple- mented, as some "go against the grain of privileges and preroga- tives that have been set in stone for centuries". "It's very difficult to try and re- form things that have become en- trenched in the system, and law- yers are naturally conservative," he said. "However, I consider the law and the Constitution to be alive and f lexible, and I look at conservatism as the enemy of the law." Bonello's commission has notably proposed that the power to appoint judges and magistrates be taken out of the justice minis- ter's hands and into those of the Commission for the Administra- tion of Justice. "Malta is the only country in the democratic world where poli- ticians get to appoint judges, and the country's judicial appoint- ments system hasn't changed an inch since the days of Grandmas- ter Pinto [in the 1700s]," he said. "Magistrates and judges are by nature supposed to be completely independent, and yet they must be approved by politicians if they want to get elected to their posts or advance in their judicial ca- reers." maltatoday, SUNDAY, 21 FEBRUARY 2016 News Judge's verdict on lawyers: they make bad ministers Sunday Times editor quits LONG-STANDING Sunday Times editor Steve Mallia will be quitting the Sunday Times, leaving the newspaper after 20 years with Allied Newspapers to join the Corinthia group, where he will be taking up a senior position close to the chairman's office. His absence will be felt after having been crucial in chang- ing the newspaper's direction and format after taking over from Laurence Grech. After serving as editor-in- chief, Mallia was posted as Sunday Times editor after an internal restructuring. Allied Newspapers, now in its 80th year, has had to contend with a worsening downward trend in print media, as a result of the growing presence of online news and the shift in advertis- ing online. Until 25 years ago, it dominat- ed the English-speaking press before the advent of the Malta Independent and MaltaToday, both of which ate into the Sun- day Times's readership. Giovanni Bonello