Benefits fraud Presidential pardons in doubt after official documents remain unexhibited

Questions over the validity of the hundreds of Presidential pardons, granted to beneficiaries of social benefits fraud, continued to mount on Wednesday.  

This after a representative from the Office of the President exhibited documents which refer to the pardons in court, but not the pardons themselves.

Labour MP and general practitioner Silvio Grixti, and his other enablers, Roger Agius, Dunstan Caruana, Emmanuel Spagnol and Luke Saliba, are undergoing separate court proceedings in which they are accused of masterminding the benefits fraud scheme.

In April, the government had announced that it would be pardoning hundreds of people who fraudulently received social benefits payments to which they were not entitled. The fraud came at an estimated €6 million cost to the taxpayer.

But doubts as to whether or not these pardons had been issued in the manner prescribed by law have recently started to be raised, as the pardon documents themselves, which lay down the conditions and scope of the pardon, have not yet been exhibited in any of the hundreds of court cases.

Moira Attard, in representation of the Office of the President of the Republic took the witness stand in one of the cases being heard by magistrate Rachel Montebello today.

The court told Attard that she had been summoned to exhibit the pardon relating to the defendant, who is being prosecuted for benefits fraud.

“I brought a copy of the order for the pardon,” replied the witness, informing the court that she was also exhibiting copies of two Press Releases explaining the pardon that had been issued by the Government in April and May, together with a letter which Attard had signed, confirming that the Presidential pardon applied to the defendant in question.

Magistrate Montebello asked whether the presidential pardon itself existed in document form.

“There is a written document, signed by the President, where the President agrees with the justice minister’s recommendation for a pardon,” the witness replied.

“That’s what the court wants,” said the magistrate.

“However, the file doesn’t belong to the Office of the President,” said the witness, instead exhibiting a copy of a document which she confirmed to have made herself.

The magistrate inspected the document, before handing it to defence lawyer Jason Azzopardi.

Azzopardi asked the witness about the document she had exhibited - a general order to issue the pardon. “Here, on 28 August, the Minister is addressing the President, who then in September, is upholding the request. Was this taken from the administrative file at the Ministry of Justice?” “Yes,” replied Attard.

“After this, was there a pardon individually addressed to the defendant?”

“No,” replied the witness. “It is covered by the general pardon.”

Azzopardi stressed that the defence needed to be assured that the documents and pardon conditions had all been satisfied. “I don’t want someone to say, further down the line, that a formal pardon had not been issued correctly.”

Before adjourning the sitting to November, the court ordered that a copy of Azzopardi’s formal request to the department which had set the pardon process in motion.

Lawyer Stefano Filletti appeared as legal advisor to the Office of the President.

Benefit fraud case sittings delayed again

Earlier on Wednesday morning, Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech who is also hearing some of the hundreds of cases relating to social benefits fraud, postponed them all until an official copy of the pardon document, signed by the President, could be exhibited.

The repeated failure to exhibit them had resulted in a waste of time and public money, said the court.

“Did you get the pardon? Did you ever sign any pardon? Did anyone explain to you the conditions under that pardon?” the Magistrate asked one defendant, a woman from Fgura who told the court she worked as a cleaner.

The woman indicated that she had not.

“She is aware of it but she never signed,” defence lawyer Charlton Cascun told the court.

The magistrate questioned how the woman could have bound herself to the conditions of the pardon, breaches of which carried consequences, without having signed it.

“There is no such thing as a pardon by reference,” said the magistrate, “this is not a pardon,” holding up the letter sent to the defendant by the Office of the President. “So far there is no pardon.”

“This is not the way pardons are done,” the magistrate remarked, pointing out that the way in which they are to be issued is laid down in the Constitution.

“It is obvious that the defendant is not bound under any conditions as stated in the letter, on the basis of which some sort of pardon was granted,” said Magistrate Frendo Dimech.

A presidential pardon is issued in terms of article 93 of the Constitution after a report and advice presented to Her Excellency, she went on.

“Therefore, at this stage and not to allow for further waste of time for the prosecution and the defendant, the court has no option but to defer the hearing to March 2025.”