Court gives unusual remedy for breach of rights in trafficker's conviction

A Constitutional Court ordered the continuation of the case against a man convicted of drug trafficking and heroin possession after it was shown that a prosecutorial irregularity had breached the defendant’s right to a fair hearing.

Judge Anna Felice, presiding the First Hall of the Civil Court in its Constitutional jurisdiction had heard lawyers explain how Christopher Cassar from Zabbar had been jailed for four years in 2007 and fined Lm1,000 (€2,300) after being convicted of trafficking and possession of heroin in August 2004, committing these crimes within 100 metres from a place frequented by youths and breaching his bail conditions.

Cassar’s lawyers had appealed arguing that the prosecution in the 2007 case had bound itself to file a note of submissions with its closing arguments and notify the defence but had failed to do so.

Subsequently a constitutional case was filed against the police commissioner, the Attorney General and the Prime Minister claiming Cassar’s fundamental human rights to a fair hearing had been breached by the way the first court had reached its conclusions.  

The Constitutional case was the only option left to Cassar, said his lawyers, arguing that, the failure to notify him with this submission, had denied him the opportunity to prepare his defence and rebut the prosecution’s claims.

The defendants, the Attorney General, Prime Minister and Commissioner of Police had argued that they should be non-suited as they had no part in the case. They also argued that the plaintiff had not exhausted his ordinary legal remedies before going down the Constitutional route.

The Attorney General also pointed out that the prosecution’s note had been filed in May 2006, while the sentence was delivered in June 2007, remarking that the defence had more than enough time to make the necessary verifications.

In its decision, the court whilst deploring the plaintiff’s attempt to impute ulterior motives to the Commissioner of Police, upheld the plaintiff’s first request and declared that Cassar had suffered a breach of his right to a fair hearing. By way of remedy, the court ordered the case to be remitted to the Court of Magistrates to be decided afresh, with proceedings continuing from the stage where the note had been submitted.