Storing seized drugs in court is illegal, lawyers claim, citing 2002 legal notice

Trouble is brewing for the administration of justice, after lawyers for a Paceville bouncer argued that the current practice of storing seized drugs connected to ongoing cases in court, was illegal.

This emerged in proceedings against Emanuel Calleja from Birżebbuġa, who was arrested in 2015 at Paceville nightclub Clique, where he had been working as a bouncer.

Calleja had reportedly been under investigation for some time before his arrest in Paceville, where he was arrested whilst allegedly in possession of some 300 ecstasy pills and an undisclosed amount of cocaine.

He was charged with conspiring to deal in cocaine and ecstasy, possession of the drugs found in circumstances denoting they were not for his personal use and to dealing in drugs within 100 metres of a venue frequented by youths, besides charges of working as a bouncer without a licence, possession of pepper spray, resisting arrest, as well as threatening and slightly injuring the three arresting police officers and disobeying their orders.

But as compilation proceedings against Calleja continued before Magistrate Elaine Mercieca today, Calleja’s lawyers, Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri, dropped a veritable bombshell, requesting the expunging of the alleged drugs from the court file, together with the reports relating to the analysis carried out on the substances by court experts.

The lawyers cited an obscure and largely unnoticed legal notice issued in 2002, which specifies the public officers who are authorised to hold different court exhibits on behalf of the Registrar of the Criminal Courts.

Legal Notice 121 of 2002 designates the Commissioner of Police as responsible for arms and ammunition, the Brigadier of the AFM as responsible for explosives, dangerous chemicals or combustible materials, the director of Museums for items of historical or artistic value, the Governor of the Central Bank for money, financial certificates, precious metals and stones, and crucially for the purposes of this case, the Director of Health for dangerous drugs.

The legal notice states that these persons are to hold such property in a safe place and shall not be used by any person or released to any person, except as directed by the Registrar of the Criminal Courts.

But legal sources say that the current practise is for all exhibits to be stored securely in the court building, under the authority of the Registrar of Courts, irrespective of what they consist of.

The lawyers argued that the failure to follow the relevant disposition of the law was a “serious procedural defect” with regards to the continuity of the chain of custody of the evidence, and asked the court to order their expungement from the acts of the proceedings.

If upheld, this argument will have serious and wide-ranging repercussions on practically every case in which the physical storage of evidence is required.