BREAKING | Judge Lawrence Mintoff’s ‘explosive’ letter to Castille revealed

KEY POINTS

What Mintoff claims PM told him

• Abela believes party diehards will oppose chief justice nomination from any of four judges indicated by the Opposition

• Abela believes nominating any of the four would raise Alex Borg’s stature

• PM wants to leave chief justice appointment after the election

• Lawrence Gonzi was mistaken to appoint George Abela president

• Abela was against Joseph Azzopardi’s appointment as chief justice

Reasons Mintoff claims PM is opposed to his nomination for chief justice

• Robert Abela as lawyer tried bullying court employee and insinuated Judge Mintoff was in cahoots with one of the parties in Paqpaqli charity event law suit

• Mintoff says he stood up to Abela, claiming the lawyer was more interested in money than judiciary’s independence

• Abela rebuffed Mintoff’s request to have Labour publishing house SKS withdraw Mintoff biography that attributed criminal acts to a family member

A prejudiced stance

Judge Lawrence Mintoff has accused Prime Minister Robert Abela of being prejudiced against him in an explosive letter sent to the Cabinet secretary, MaltaToday has learnt.

In his five-page letter, seen by MaltaToday, Mintoff says he was summoned for a meeting at Auberge de Castille by the prime minister on 11 February to discuss the appointment of chief justice.

It is an open secret within court circles that Mintoff had been angling for the top job. MaltaToday is informed that Mintoff had communicated his wish to become chief justice with the prime minister some five months prior to the meeting at Castille.

Mintoff’s name, along with those of three other judges, had been leaked by Newsbook on 4 February as the Opposition’s choices for chief justice. The judges were: Lawrence Mintoff, Edwina Grima, Francesco Depasquale and Anthony Ellul.

However, Mintoff alleges in his letter that during the meeting Abela told him he cannot nominate anyone of the four people identified by the Opposition because it would appear as if the prime minister is “giving in to the Opposition”. The government subsequently nominated Judge Consuelo Scerri Herrera, who was voted down.

Mintoff claims that Abela told him such a decision would not go down well with the “party’s diehards” and it would contribute to inflating Alex Borg’s “stature”.

Mintoff writes that he disagreed with the prime minister that such an important post should remain unfilled because of “partisan considerations” rather than make a choice based on the person’s merits and what is “in the country’s best interest”.

Gonzi’s mistake to make George Abela president

The judge says that he mentioned the nomination of George Abela as president in 2009 by then Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, a decision supported by the Labour Opposition at the time. George Abela is Robert Abela’s father.

“Neither side won; rather the country won,” Mintoff says he told Robert Abela. Nonetheless, Mintoff claims the prime minister told him it was “a mistake by Dr Gonzi to nominate Dr George Abela as president”.

Mintoff claims the prime minister kept insisting that the PN’s plan was to “burn” the four proposed judges because they had somebody else in mind. The prime minister purportedly told Mintoff the name of the person the PN supposedly had in mind and insisted lawyers were opposed to the person.

“I told him that if it is true the Opposition proposed four names to throw them under the bus, why not call their bluff, if according to him this was bluff,” Mintoff writes.

The judge continues that the prime minister told him the political atmosphere was too hot and lacked serenity to allow for such an appointment to happen now. Mintoff claims the prime minister told him he preferred to leave the issue until after the next election.

Mintoff says that he told the prime minister that such a decision would ensure that people like him would never get a chance to be nominated. The prime minister, allegedly told Mintoff to give him some time to think it over and that the “door remains open”.

However, Mintoff claims the conversation than continued on WhatsApp and it was at this point that Abela mentioned Mintoff’s age as a factor. The judge is 66 and will retire in two years’ time.

Mintoff says that he pointed out that when Judge Joseph Azzopardi was appointed chief justice in 2018, he had roughly the same two-year timeframe to retire as him. Mintoff says Abela told him that he “had not agreed with the appointment of Dr Azzopardi as chief justice”.

But then Mintoff goes on to list two episodes, which he claims are the real reasons why Abela does not want to support his nomination for chief justice. The two episodes happened while Mintoff was exercising his duties as judge and was constrained to stand up to Abela.

Paqpaqli incident

The first episode concerns a civil case for damages brought by the victims of a supercar crash during the Paqpaqli għall-Istrina charity event, which was being heard by Mintoff. The crash happened in 2015 on the runway in Luqa. At the time, Abela was a lawyer representing one of the parties.

That a judge is an accomplice with one of the parties in a case being heard in front of him, is one of the most serious accusations that can be made. But for Dr Abela money was more important than the judiciary’s independence Judge Lawrence Mintoff

At one point in 2018, the parties in the case reached an out of court settlement rumoured to be in the millions and judicial proceedings were withdrawn. Mintoff had ruled that the tax on expenses should be applied on the minimum value.

The judge claims that he was subsequently informed by an employee of his office that Abela was applying pressure on her and the court registrar over the taxation issue.

Mintoff says that at the time, Abela, who was an MP, had also filed several parliamentary questions in a bid to obtain information as to what compensation was paid by the government and the insurance companies to the Paqpaqli victims. The judge says Abela did this “in the hope that he gets paid according to the total value of compensation received and not on the minimum due as decreed by the court when levying tax”.

Abela threat to sack employee

Mintoff claims that when Abela failed to achieve his aim he started putting pressure on the judge’s employee and even “threatened to get her sacked”.

Mintoff says Abela had also implied that the judge was an accomplice to President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca so that taxation is levied at the minimum value.

“That a judge is an accomplice with one of the parties in a case being heard in front of him, is one of the most serious accusations that can be made. But for Dr Abela money was more important than the judiciary’s independence,” Mintoff writes in his letter.
After Abela became prime minister in January 2020, Mintoff had the occasion to meet him at the law courts during a courtesy visit. When Mintoff confronted the prime minister on the Paqpaqli issue, the prime minister dismissed it and told him to forget it because it was “aqua passata” (water under the bridge).

“This is the level of respect Dr Abela has for the judiciary and the rule of law,” Mintoff writes.

Dom Mintoff biography

The second episode concerned the publication by the Labour Party’s publishing house SKS of Fr Mark Montebello’s biography of Dom Mintoff in 2021, which contained personal salacious details.

In his letter, Mintoff says that a member of his family, now deceased, mentioned in the book was accused of a criminal act. The judge says that he had asked Abela, as Labour Party leader, to withdraw the publication from the shops to no avail.

Mintoff says Abela had tried to talk him out of it, even claiming SKS was independent from the PL, something, which the judge found to be untrue since the publishing house’s number and address were those of Labour HQ.

Mintoff says that he later asked that a public apology be issued and the proceeds from the book be distributed to charity. However, Abela refused this symbolic gesture.

Mintoff says that these two incidents are the real reason Abela does not want to nominate him chief justice, accusing him of having a conflict of interest and being prejudiced against him.

Abela should abstain

The judge subsequently asked that the prime minister abstain from “taking part in the negotiations, consultations, deliberations, and the choice of who should serve as chief justice”.

The letter was also copied to President Miriam Spiteri Debono, the prime minister, Deputy Prime Minister Ian Borg and Justice Minister Jonathan Attard.

Undoubtedly, the letter has scuppered Mintoff’s chances of being nominated to the post of chief justice and is likely to lead to his resignation from the Bench amid the serious allegations that Abela has to answer for.