When the foundations are shaken

These are disquieting times for the institutions that prop up Malta's fledgling democracy.

In the space of just a few days, we have witnessed the collapse of a government after the defeat of its annual budget in parliament. Much more worryingly, we also saw the institution of the judiciary plunged into deep crisis as a result of separate scandals in which two of its senior members are embroiled.

Admittedly, the two cases in themselves cannot realistically be placed on the same pedestal. One involves criminal charges pressed against a member of the Court of Criminal Appeal (Mr Justice Raymond Pace) for allegations of bribery. The other concerns a sitting judge (Lino Farrugia Sacco) who was reprimanded by the Olympic Committee for his dubious handling of a presumed illicit ticket scam.

Naturally, the first scandal is by far the more serious of the two. Still, both cases have, in different ways, caused incalculable harm to the image and reputation of the judiciary... and it doesn't help to observe that this same reputation had already been severely besmirched in recent years: first by a similar corruption scandal involving former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo and Judge Patrick Vella in 2002; and subsequently by a whole series of debatable sentences and court decisions, some of which were delivered anywhere up to 25 years after the case had first been initiated.

Nor is it particularly helpful that (until the time of going to print, at any rate) neither of the two judges had voluntary tendered his resignation. Indeed, one of the two - Farrugia Sacco - has already made it clear that he has no intention of resigning at all.

This is an awkward and quite frankly untenable state of affairs. As past experience shows, the alternative - impeachment - will always be a political minefield, in a country where judges and magistrates are appointed directly by the Justice Minister and approved by Cabinet... which makes theirs a political appointment in all but name.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has meanwhile threatened to move an impeachment motion for both judges - knowing full well that this would pose a dilemma for Labour: as Farrugia Sacco's son is today a Labour candidate.

Labour has meanwhile agreed to impeach Pace, but one can only suspect political opportunism at work behind Dr Gonzi's sudden insistence on a culture of resignations... especially when the same Dr Gonzi saw no reason to demand resignations in other cases where top civil servants were embroiled in various scandals (Rita Schembri being one example, but there are plenty more).

None of this is particularly helpful at this delicate stage. To put the matter succinctly: a country simply cannot afford to lose faith in its justice system, nor render the same system subject to the exigencies of an embattled political party just before an election.

In a sense we have all recently caught a glimpse of the possible consequences of loss of trust in the justice system. Malta was this week shaken out of its somnolence by two violent murders on the same day: admittedly it may well be a coincidence, but both murder victims happened to be facing trial for violent crimes of their own... and both had been unaccountably granted bail, in spite of the gravity of the charges against them.

Placed in the context of a woefully inconsistent bail and sentencing policy, whereby dangerous criminals are often given provisional liberty, while other more innocuous cases are remanded in custody for no apparent reason, these two murders also underscored the glaring lack of logic that so often underpins the modus operandi of a judiciary that is technically answerable to nobody outside of itself.

And yet, worrying though the situation has undeniably become, it would be unwise to rush into proposed 'solutions' on what should and should not be done: especially if these same 'solutions' are likewise inconsistent or marred by ulterior motives.

Prime Minister Gonzi is clearly right to insist that the two disgraced judges should resign of their own accord - even if they turn out to be innocent of the charges (in which case they can always be reinstated later, as happened in a separate resignation case involving Justice Minister Chris Said).

But given the sheer extent of the visible problems (one shudders to think of the invisible part of the iceberg below the surface), what is really needed is not a piecemeal approach to individual problems as they arise.

On the contrary, what is needed is a root-and-branch reform of the entire system, taking into account the following concerns: how judges and magistrates are appointed (which, unlike the existing system, should be concomitant with the procedure for their removal); a code of ethics to define and lay down rules on such matters as potential conflicts of interest among judges, among other issues pertaining to private behaviour, lifestyle, etc; and a revisiting of a number of basic justice issues such as the need for consistency in the application of such measures as bail.

Anything less than a complete systemic reform will not satisfy a now palpable thirst for more seriousness at all levels of the country's administration. One can only wonder why this reform was not effected when the Arrigo/Vella case had first shaken public confidence in such an important institution, almost a decade ago.