Constitutional Court to decide drug law loophole breaches fundamental human rights

A judge has upheld a request by a man, whose case was deemed ineligible to be heard by a drugs court, to have the Constitutional Court decide on whether his right to a fair hearing had been breached.

Precisely one week ago, Siggiewi resident Mario Zammit, 43, had asked for the court's permission to go before the constitutional court and have it rule on whether a legal loophole preventing his case from being heard by a specialised drugs court actually breached his fundamental human right to a fair hearing.

Zammit had filed an appeal after being handed a 6 month prison sentence and €800 fine for having sold heroin for a five-month period in 2009. But only a few months after his sentence, the Drug Dependence (Treatment not Imprisonment Act) was introduced, under which Zammit would have qualified for rehabilitation and not prison.

However the reform was implemented in such a way as to benefit every person accused, in every stage of proceedings, except the appeal stage.

His lawyers, Veronique Dalli and Dean Hili had requested the Court of Criminal Appeal to convert itself into a drugs court to have Zammit referred before a board, which would decide on whether to imprison him or send him to drub rehab.

It its 2014 decision, the Criminal Court had held that this benefit only applied to a person accused and the Attorney General’s office had argued that once convicted, a person was no longer accused – an assertion contested by his lawyers, who pointed out that his conviction was still subject to an ongoing appeal.

This morning, Madam Justice Edwina Grima accepted the defence's request for a constitutional reference, asking the First Hall of the Civil Court in its Constitutional jurisdiction to provide guidance on whether Act 1 of 2015 prejudiced the rights of a person with a pending case before the court of Criminal Appeal, as the new law contemplates a lower punishment for the offences he is charged with, but also precludes him from qualifying for it.