Lawyers’ chamber welcomes judicial reforms, but wants judges to choose Chief Justice

The Chamber of Advocates has welcomed the Maltese government’s respone to recommendations from the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission on reforms in the judiciary.

The Chamber said its own proposals relating to judicial appointments wer taken on board in its consultation with the justice minister.

“Indeed, in one of the fundamental areas of the proposals made by the Government of Malta in judicial appointments, the removal of any political intervention, is a welcome development that augurs well for the commitment towards creating a system of appointments devoid of political connotations,” Chamber president Louis Degabriele said.

A new system of judicial appointments, with the exception of the appointment of the Chief Justice, will have no political motivation or undertone, and recommendations of the Judicial Appointments Committee will be made directly to the President of the Republic who will then select the candidates, on the basis of the recommendations made by the JAC.

“This is an encouraging move, which finally removes any say of the political class in judicial appointments,” Degabriele said.

But the Chamber had expressed its preferred view that the appointment of the Chief Justice should be made from among senior judges, eliminating the possibility that persons outside the judiciary could be appointed directly as chief justices, and where the appointment would be made by members of the judiciary themselves, without the intervention of any political power.

“These proposals are a significant and positive step in addressing the Venice Commission opinion of December 2018, particularly with respect to judicial appointments.  There are, of course, still issues that need to be addressed and which may not have been raised by the Venice Commission in its 2018 opinion, but which remain very relevant for the overall checks and balances and the current system of judicial appointments,” Degabriele said.