Joe Brincat asks to be admitted to judicial appointments case

Former Minister Joseph Brincat has filed a court application asking for permission to have his say in the judicial appointments case currently ongoing before the civil courts, as an intervenor to the case.

Brincat requested to be allowed to intervene in the proceedings instituted by Repubblika, so as to “contribute to the debate.”

Brincat is claiming that his request is well-founded and not frivolous but because “he truly believes that it is not right to have attacks upon and inferences against the Maltese judicial system, deeply rooted in historical traditions, irrespective of any opinion of any judge or magistrate.”

The veteran lawyer argued that the Venice Commission and its experts were nominated by their home governments to serve for a four-year term which could be renewed for a further term.

“Adopting the same yardstick, the Venice Commission did not offer any competition for experts but was structured upon persons chosen as experts by their own governments. By this same criterion, it was not impartial nor independent.”

He referred to the history of the Venice Commission, which had been set up by Italian Socialist Minister Gianni de Michelis, to put things into perspective, and pointed out that the Commission’s current president “spent all his life at the Council of Europe” whose employees were assigned according to their home country and allocated by political parties.

“Each of the judges at the European Court of Justice was also effectively nominated by the government of his country,” Brincat argued, adding that although a nominee could be pronounced “unsuitable” by a panel of experts, the choice of the next candidate would still ultimately be made by the government.

This also counted for the European Court of Human Rights, Brincat said, concluding that “Europe had no organization to ensure that governments would have no say in the matter.”

Various EU members used the same system of judicial appointments as ours, said the lawyer, mentioning Ireland, England, Austria, Cyprus and Denmark.