Lawyer’s request for ban temporary upheld after outright refusal

In an unexpected turn of events, Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit this morning temporarily banned the publication of criminal proceedings, minutes after telling the defence lawyer that there was no legal basis for requesting the ban.

The court had started hearing evidence in the first sitting of a compilation of evidence against a 34-year-old woman from Mosta.

The woman is facing charges of aggression towards the police in St Julian's on 25 August. Halfway through the sitting, after noticing the presence of the press in the courtroom, defence lawyer Maxileen Pace requested that the court hold the sitting 'in camera' because her client suffered from a medical condition.

Magistrate Stafrace Zammit immediately replied that should she entertain the request, it would give a right to everyone who has a medical condition to request bans on publication of his or her case.

15 minutes later, with both the defence lawyer and the magistrate leafing through legislation, no act of law was found to support the request.

However, in what one eyewitness source later noted was "an application of bad law", the magistrate told journalists that the proceedings were to be treated as 'in camera' and could not be reported until such time as she issues a decree with the court's decision.

The accused is the girlfriend of a 36-year-old Maltese nobleman. When the two were arraigned in separate sittings, Magistrate Ian Farrugia threw out the request of lawyer Joseph Ellis to ban the press from naming the woman. However the court upheld the nobleman's plea to have his name kept from being published.

Both had pleaded not guilty to the charges and were granted bail.