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Today’s issue concerns one of the main foundations of any democracy. The Judiciary plays an important role more so because of its independence from government and parliament.

The Maltese system allows politicians to select magistrates and judges, a practice, which we inherited from the British. It may have its ups and downs but today’s exigencies may require an alternative to ensure a less direct role for politicians. We asked the Labour Party spokesman for Justice to give us his personal views on the matter.

Politicians and the Judiciary

By Dr Anglu Farrugia

In Malta it has always been the custom that the country's executive appoints magistrates and judges. In fact this is a formal constitutional procedure. It is attributed to the historical fact that we have adopted many traditions and procedures, which have always been followed by Britain, mostly due to Malta being an ex British colony.

On the other hand no magistrate or judge can be removed from office if not by a two-thirds majority vote in Parliament. Such a procedure has advantages but also disadvantages. This procedure is left completely to the discretion of the elected politicians. Hence there may be particular circumstances where this constitutional procedure, can turn out to be unjust. The same applies to the fact that the Minister for Justice and the Prime Minister solely enjoy the privilege of appointing or nominating a particular lawyer to become a judge or magistrate. A prevailing general perception regarding such appointments is that magistrates and judges are not appointed on the basis of meritocracy but favouritism.

Many ask, and I must admit that I appertain to the this last category, whether the appointment and removal of magistrates and judges should be completely left to the discretion of politicians without any structure or proper procedure that provides the necessary checks and balances. Should there perhaps be a series of pre-appointment recommendations by other people - excluding politicians? In my opinion the present procedure insults our democratic foundations as it excludes nearly half of the elected politicians in Parliament, namely the Opposition. The general public’s feeling, although I believe it is not always the case, is that when the Nationalist Party is in power than only nationalists sympathisers are appointed magistrates and judges to our courts of justice, while when the Labour Party is in power only labour sympathisers are appointed. This, in real terms is not true, although on certain occasions one must admit that it was evidently so.

It is in the public interest that such constitutional procedures profess strongly transparency. It is in the public interest that one of the main pillars of democracy - the judiciary - is above every possible influence from the executive and the legislature.

A new formula is needed to ensure such a possibility. One formula to be evaluated could be to have a cross party committee together with direct public representation where nominations for the appointment of judges and magistrates are discussed and eventually decided upon. Such a procedure would need the necessary constitutional amendments. However all this boils down to party politics, and at this period of time I very much doubt how much interest it will gather from the relevant quarters. The recently appointed Electoral Commission tells it all!

Dr Farrugia is the MLP spokesperson for Justice