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Update: Government appoints Attorney General Silvio Camilleri to Chief Justice
Attorney General Silvio Camilleri is to be sworn in as Chief Justice, succeeding Vincent de Gaetano who will take up his post as Judge at the European Court of Human Rights on September 9.
Silvio Camilleri, 57, is a long serving prosecutor at the Attorney General’s Office and was appointed to AG in 2004.
According to the Constitution, the Chief Justice is appointed by the President, acting on the advice of the Prime Minister. He or she may be chosen from either practising lawyers, magistrates who possess the qualifications required by law to be appointed judge, or serving judges, as was the case with de Gaetano.
The Chief Justice is ex officio President of the Court of Appeal, the Constitutional Court and of the Court of Criminal Appeal. He is also ex officio deputy chairman of the Commission for the Administration of Justice and presides of the Rule-Making Boards set up under the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure and the Criminal Code.
The government is in the process of identifying Silvio Camilleri’s successor as Attorney General.
Dr. Silvio Camilleri was born on the 26th April 1953. He was called to the Bar in January 1976 and after four years in private practice he joined the public service as Senior Counsel.
On the 13 December 1998 he was appointed member of the National Order of Merit in the grade of Member. Dr. Camilleri has often formed part of official delegations representing Malta abroad. He also represented Malta on various Council of Europe committees and sits on expert committees dealing with criminal law and constitutional issues.
He was the Chairman of the Council of Europe Committee on the Development of Human Rights (DH-DEV) and of the Committee on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures (PC-R-EV/MONEYVAL) until the lapse of the maximum term in office. He is also Chairman of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit.
Camilleri is a senior lecturer in Criminal Law and Head of Department of Criminal Law of the University of Malta. Since 2004 he has been the Government’s Agent before the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice and pleaded on behalf of Malta before those Courts.
