No breach of human rights in Daniel Holmes trial, says court

Court rules that in spite of the delays, which led to his trial taking “longer than was strictly necessary,” there was no breach of Holme's right to justice with a reasonable time

Daniel Holmes
Daniel Holmes

Jailed Welshman Daniel Holmes has been faced with another disappointment  after a court rejected a Constituional application he had filed, holding that his human rights had not been violated.

Holmes, who is currently serving 10-and-a-half years in prison for cannabis cultivation, had filed a constitutional application against the Attorney General, the Police Commissioner and the Registrar of the Gozo courts, claiming that his human rights had been breached when he had not been granted access to a lawyer at the time of his arrest and interrogation.

Holmes and another man, Berry Charles Lee had been arraigned in Gozo in December 2007, on charges of theft, voluntary damage and with having caused slight injuries to a third party.

Holmes claimed that he had been held in preventive custody for almost a year before being granted bail in December 2008. Holmes was eventually acquitted of the charges five years later, in 2013.

In his constitutional application Holmes complained of a breach of his right to legal assistance when under arrest, that his legal aid lawyer had not mounted an adequate defence and that he had been held in custody without bail for an unreasonable time.

The right to legal assistance during interrogation was introduced into Maltese criminal law in the years following Holmes' arrest.

The court, however, held that in spite of the delays, which led to his trial taking “longer than was strictly necessary,” there was no breach of his right to justice with a reasonable time.