Farrugia Sacco retires tomorrow, avoids impeachment motion

Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco reaches retirement age tomorrow, meaning that he will avoid facing an impeachment motion.

The House Business Committee, back in February, decided to postpone any parliamentary debate and vote on a motion to impeach him, arguing that it should be shelved until the Constitutional Court decides on a judicial protest filed by Farrugia Sacco.

Although the Nationalist Party repeatedly called on the government to go ahead with the motion, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici insisted that it was a matter of fundamental human rights.

Farrugia Sacco had turned to the courts to defend his legal rights after claiming that he was not being given a fair trial following government's decision to move a new impeachment motion without a fresh investigation by the commission for the administration of justice

The judge had argued that a second decision by the CAJ, reconfirming its original decision in January without holding a second set of hearings on the new impeachment against the judge filed by the Prime Minister, breaches his constitutional rights.

A new motion was filed after the original motion was declared to be invalid in the new legislature when former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi resigned his seat in the House.

The investigation had found him guilty over the way he behaved himself as president of the Malta Olympics Committee (MOC).

The original case goes back to when The Sunday Times of London, saw investigative reporters offer €60,000 for rights to sell the Malta Olympic Committee's tickets for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics games. Farrugia Sacco and MOC general secretary Joe Cassar were covertly recorded by the reporters - who were posing as envoys of a Middle Eastern ticket tout - explaining how high-mark ups could be "camouflaged" through "subtle" marketing techniques.

Following the report in The Sunday Times of London, then-Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had initiated an impeachment motion back in June 2012. However, despite the CAJ advising Farrugia Sacco to resign from his post as president of the MOC, the judge did not resign.

When faced by repeated calls to go ahead with the impeachment motion, the Minister for Justice “appealed for maturity”, arguing the case was “delicate”.

“Farrugia Sacco took his case to court basing his arguments on fundamental human rights and Parliament shouldn’t proceed with the impeachment motion until the cases in court are settled,” Bonnici always said.