Joe Micallef Stafrace, independent-minded Labour stalwart, dies at 87

The veteran socialist politician Joe Micallef Stafrace, a Labour minister who lived through the highs and lows of the Dom Mintoff years, has died. He was 87.

Micallef Stafrace became an MP in 1962 in a casual election for the vacant seat of Patrick Holland, which he retained in the elections after to become minister for trade, industry and tourism in the first Mintoff administration of 1971. But he resigned abruptly in October 1971, for reasons never officially disclosed.

Micallef Stafrace was born in Valletta in 1933, and pursued his studies at the Lyceum and the University of Malta. In 1955 he became the editor if Labour’s bi-weekly newspaper Is-Sebħ, a newspaper which was suspended for two months in 1959 by court orderm after Micallef Stafrace was sentenced to four days’ imprisonment for the vilification of the governor Robert Laycock in a cartoon for his newspaper Is-Sebħ, for portraying him as a drunkard.

He married Yvonne Zammit in 1961. Together they had three children: Magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace, lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace, and one-time Labour candidate for Europe, Kirill Micallef Stafrace.

Wedding bells: Joe Micallef Stafrace and wife Yvonne in 1961, with Labour MP Patrick Holland

As a member of the Labour executive, Micallef Stafrace was interdicted from the Catholic Church’s holy rites by decree of Archbishop Mikiel Gonzi, preventing him from getting married in a church. He was instead married in the church sacristy.

In 2019, he welcomed Archbishop Scicluna’s blessing of Guze Ellul Mercer’s grave in the Addolorata cemetery as “a beautiful and unexpected gesture, because Guze Ellul Mercer’s grave is a symbol for all Labourites. I have only praise for this gesture.” The unconsecrated ground in which Ellul Mercer was buried was dubbed the ‘mizbla’, something which caused deep anguish in relatives of people denied this final rite of passage.

“I was the editor of Labour’s newspaper Is-Sebħ when my family was denied from fully experiencing an important rite in Maltese life. My greatest regret is that my wife had to pass through it. Her bridal dress was sown by her mother. Her family wished to see her accompanied by her father to the altar. Instead we entered the church from the back and into the sacristy. When Yvonne was asked whether she’d take me as her husband she yelled out ‘yes’, her voice resounding well beyond the thick walls of the sacristy!

“To add to the humiliation, a group of youths chanted politically charged hymns outside the church.

“But I make a firm distinction between the duty to remember these events and remaining resentful or bear a grudge. Memories cannot be erased, but one should forgive without forgetting, and remember without too much bitterness. I was directly involved and an apology does not heal all wounds but one should not remain stuck in the past. History is life’s teacher but one should not remain anchored in the past.”

Micallef Stafrace remembered

The government and Opposition leader saluted Micallef Stafrace's memory, while Magistrate Joe Mifsud held a minute’s silence in his courtroom on Friday morning.

The magistrate praised Micallef Stafrace’s contribution as a lawyer and a court expert. He was joined in the salutation by veteran lawyer Joe Brincat, who praised Micallef Stafrace’s unstinting defence of freedom of expression even at the expense of going to jail.

All lawyers and the prosecuting officers present in the courtroom saluted Micallef Stafrace and the message was communicated to the deceased’s daughter Magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace and son Simon Micallef Stafrace, a lawyer and court expert.