Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/646116
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2016 10 News MATTHEW AGIUS A proposal by the government to have a judicial appointments commission under which lawyers would be papabili for the bench has already been met with oppro- brium from the opposition, which claims the bill gives the Prime Minister leeway to appoint his own choices. The new system, proposed in the aftermath of the sharp criticism of the government for dragging its feet on recommendations by the Bonello commission, would ap- point judges and magistrates on recommendations of a judicial ap- pointments commission. That commission would receive expressions of interest from law- yers seeking a magistrate's posi- tion, to then pass on the most suit- able candidates to the minister for justice for him to appoint. The sys- tem would end decades of judges and magistrates being nominated by the executive, something that reached fever pitch when Labour was accused of promoting red to- gas to the bench. But Owen Bonnici's counterpart on the opposition benches, Jason Azzopardi, has come back with a livid reply at the proposals. "I'm dumbfounded at the deceit and barefaced con shown by the gov- ernment between what it prom- ised to change compared to what we find in the bill. The Bonello Commission recommendations on this score are truly dead and bur- ied," Azzopardi said. According to the Nationalist MP, the Prime Minister is still being given the power to nominate any lawyer for the judicial appoint- ments commission's review, even if a lawyer would not have applied to the commission. "The Prime Minister is being empowered to nominate to the ju- diciary a lawyer whose nomination would have been shot down by the Commission," Azzopardi claims. "No one would know that the PM would be nominating someone who was not nominated by the Commission since the Commis- sion will be bound by confidenti- ality." Azzopardi is correct on the con- fidentiality of the procedures, an aspect of the proposed commis- sion that is expected to protect those lawyers who do not make the grade for magistrate when they return to their private practice. When the commission selects its preferred candidates, it will be up to the government to choose its nomination for magistrate. On this point, Bonnici claims he is balancing out the commission's powers with that of the executive, apart from taking on the Bonello Commission's actual recommen- dation, which even gives leeway to the government to refuse its recommendation as long as it jus- tifies it. But Azzopardi insists the com- mission will be used as "a smoke- screen to add a veneer of legiti- macy to the government's own nominations", which unlike his own private member's bill does not make it obligatory for the Prime Minister to nominate the lawyer who would have been recom- mended by the Commission. Azzopardi is correct that the government grants the proposed commission leeway on the crite- ria by which it will choose magis- trates; his own private member's bill, shot down by the Attorney General for being a money bill that requires Cabinet clearance, included 10 criteria for assessing prospective magistrates. In that it echoed the Bonello Commission's proposal to increase qualitative criteria such as "integrity, knowl- edge of the law, honesty, justness, diligence, practice of the profes- sion in courts and the absence of commercial activity in business". One other critic of parts of Bonn- ici's bill comes from the Commis- sioner for Laws, Franco Debono. Before 2013, the former Nation- alist MP was a rebel backbencher who made justice reform his bone of contention, finally voting in a no confidence motion in 2011 against his own party's home af- fairs and justice minister, Carm Mifsud Bonnici. Now he does not shy away from expressing disappointment at not being given credit for the role he played in the reforms finally fleshed out and proposed by judge emeritus Giovanni Bonello under the new Labour administration. "[The new Bill] is based on the Bonello report which, in turn, was borrowed heavily from a motion which I had presented to Parlia- ment two years before," Debono said. He even plans to publish a compilation of his motions and speeches, dubbed 'The Birth of the Justice Reform' – critics will sneer at the exercise in self-aggrandise- ment, but however indelicate his method of reminding the public, Debono maintains that at least 293 of the measures proposed by the Bonello Commission can trace their roots back to his work in Par- liament. His opus, a painstakingly footnoted compendium of his sug- gestions, could be a handy refer- ence work for journalists, lawyers and – dare he say it – the judiciary. "In 2011 I suggested, writing in the press, to build on the Scottish model for appointing judges and magistrates. In that system you have a judicial appointments com- mittee which receives applications from prospective candidates for the judicature and vets them be- fore passing on its findings to the Minister for Justice and Cabinet for final approval. That is one of the fundamental reforms that must happen." Debono added that, as happens in other fora, some form of grill- ing of candidates ought to be in- troduced in order to further refine the selection of candidates. But he strongly disagrees with the Bill's introduction of discipli- nary measures with respect to the judiciary – by a new sub-commit- tee that would handle judges' and magistrates' misdemeanours. "Appoint the judiciary with care and there would be no need to en- force discipline," Debono argued, even though that does not take human fallibility into account. "The fact that such proceed- ings would be held behind closed doors does not protect the judi- cature from a loss of moral au- thority. On paper it looks nice, but when it comes to enforcing sanctions... if word gets out that magistrate 'X' was punished, this would undermine the respect and credibility of the judiciary. If a judge requires disciplinary proceedings, he should be im- peached, not fined." Debono has even questioned the need for more magistrates, point- ing out that most afternoons, the courts were empty. "The most se- rious backlog is not in the courts of magistrates, but in the courts of appeal, where at the moment there is a 3.5 year delay from fil- ing the case to its first sitting. And when the backlog in the lower courts is cleared, if we have a glut of magistrates and no backlog – then what?" Franco Debono, never one to take matters lying down, still plans on being an outsider on the unfolding landscape of justice reform, taking a pot shot at the justice minister for not seeking greater consensus with the oppo- sition on its private member's bill. "Is it good faith or is it institu- tional incest, when a supposedly autonomous parliament seeks ad- vice from the same Attorney Gen- eral whose duty according to law is to represent solely the interests of the government which are in conflict with those of the opposi- tion whose bill is the subject mat- ter of the advice sought?" It is quite something when the Nationalist Party's one-time nem- esis has to agree with his former party. magius@mediatoday.com.mt Housing Authority Tenders - 5 Lifts 1. Construction Works, Supply, Installation & Commissioning of 1 Passenger Lift at Block B, Triq Fuq tal-Hawli, Birgu using Environmentally Friendly Paints (Ref. TWO 4/2016). A meeting on site shall be held on 2nd March 2016 at 9.00am. 2. Construction Works, Supply, Installation & Commissioning of 2 Passenger Lifts at Blocks H & M, Qasam Ħal-Tmiem, Żejtun using Environmentally Friendly Paints (Ref. TWO 5/2016). A meeting on site shall be held on 2nd March 2016 at 10.00am. 3. Construction Works, Supply, Installation & Commissioning of 2 Passenger Lifts at Block 5, Doors B & C, Misraћ Lewża, San Gwann using Environmentally Friendly Paints (Ref. TWO 6/2016). A meeting on site shall be held on 3rd March 2016 at 9.00am. O Offers close on 5th April 2016, at 09.30hrs. Tender document is to be viewed/downloaded and submitted ONLY through the e-tenders website on http://www.etenders.gov.mt. Critics punch holes into Bonnici's justice reform bill Franco Debono – critical of some provisions in the proposed legislation Justice Minister Owen Bonnici (left) and shadow minister Jason Azzopardi