The power to appoint judges and magistrates is a convenient reward system for the government

After calls by the president of the Chamber of Advocates, George Hyzler, for the government to relinquish the power to appoint judges and magistrates and devolve this to an independent commission and public scrutiny, the government has said that it will not do so “but is open to discussion”.

Talk is cheap. This government will never relinquish the power to appoint judges and magistrates because it uses it as a convenient reward system.

So far, the government has appointed – please let me know if I have missed out on any crony political appointment to the bench – the editor of the Labour Party’s official newspaper KullHadd, Wenzu Mintoff (judge); the Labour Party’s former international secretary and former reporter with its official newspaper, Joe Mifsud (magistrate); a failed Labour Party candidate in the 2013 general election who is also known for her close association with the Justice Minister who appointed her, which very sadly caused the first spate of trouble in his marriage, Joanne Vella Cuschieri (magistrate); Monica Vella, former Labour mayor of Xewkija (magistrate); the Labour Party deputy leader Toni Abela’s law office partner, Charmaine Galea (magistrate); Labour MEP Marlene Mizzi’s husband, Antonio Mizzi (judge – he was a magistrate already, so whether this is strictly a political appointment is open to dispute, even though he was appointed magistrate by Labour Prime Minister Sant in the 1990s).

All of this, of course, is completely disgusting. The fact that the government has also appointed token judges and magistrates who are not political is beside the point.

The matter of the appointment of judges and magistrates was raised by Giovanni Bonello as a key point in his Justice Reform Report to this government. It was completely ignored and within days of Judge Bonello’s submission, the government added insult to injury by announcing the appointment of Wenzu Mintoff as a judge.