GUEST POST: Contrary to what Carol Peralta claims, there are NO judgements of the European Court of Human Rights which say that members of the judiciary can be Freemasons
The newspapers have reported that Magistrate Carol Peralta, charged with being a Freemason, retorted that there are several judgements of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which confirm that members of the judiciary can be Freemasons if they wish.
Are there? No there are not.
Magistrate Peralta has misread European case law. Are we amazed?
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has dealt with three Italian cases in which membership in Masonic lodges was at issue. None of these three judgements ever said that that it is permissible for judges and magistrates to be Freemasons.
Let us go very briefly through them.
1. Grande Oriente d’ Italia di Palazzo Giustiniani v. Italy, decided on 2 August 2001. This judgement struck down an Italian law that prohibited some specific public offices from being occupied by Freemasons. It did not deal at all with whether exercising judicial functions was compatible with being a Freemason.
2. N.F. v Italy , decided on 2 August 2001; and
3. Maestri v. Italy, decided on 17 February 2004. These last two can be dealt with together.
In both cases the complaint against Italy had been lodged by Italian judges who had been disciplined for being Freemasons. The ECHR ruled that for any person to be subject to disciplinary proceedings, there must first be in existence clear and foreseeable prohibitions against that action or behaviour for which the person is being disciplined.
When it examined the Italian legal set-up, the ECHR was of the opinion that the norms prohibiting judges from being Freemasons were not sufficiently “clear and foreseeable”.
The human rights violation found in both cases by the ECHR was not because Italy had prohibited judges from being Freemasons – not at all. That issue was not at stake.
Italy was found to have violated the human rights of the two judges in so far as it had disciplined them for being Freemasons when there was no clear and foreseeable norm, in Italy, that prohibited judges from being Freemasons. Nowhere do these judgements say that members of the judiciary can be Freemasons.
In other words, Italy was not at fault for prosecuting Freemasonic judges. Italy was only at fault for disciplining them when the law did not clearly prohibit judges from being Freemasons.
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Excuse my ignorance, but what is the issue with being a Freemason? And what exactly is a Freemason after all? Wikipedia did not help much unfortunately.
Freemasons’ loyalty is to fellow Freemasons first and foremost.
Members of the judiciary should be impartial.
It follows that a magistrate cannot be a Freemason.
Freemasonry organisations are secretive organisations.
How can a magistrate (or judge) ensure impartiality in the courtroom if one cannot tell if there is any association between the magistrate and any of the parties in front of the court?
Xoghol investigattiv u kritika intelligenti li suppost jaghmlu l-PN qed taghmlu inti!
Mela kemm imissu jaghmel xoghol b’reqq l-gern? Ir-rizorsi tal-gvern huma ferm akbar minn ta’ l-Oppozizzjoni, imma l-gvern mhux ha jurta lill shabu stess.
So the question is, does Maltese law clearly prohibit judges and magistrates from being Freemasons or do we have the same problem as Italy?
On another point, I was reading about the L-Istrina beneficiaries and one name stood out as strange – Yi Xue Life Cultivation Malta Association. Who are these and what charity work do they do?
Hocus pocus, financed by donations diverted from deserving causes: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120617/health-fitness/Eastern-remedies-for-the-west.424733#.UrxXXH-9KSM
Although they are duly registered under the VO Law (VO/0626) they do not seem to invest much in transparency and accountability.
The entry on the official VO register (http://www.maltacvs.org/showdetails/?id=8842) does not give any details on their activity and their only contact detail is the address of their premises: 374, St. Joseph High Road , Santa Venera
This ToM article from June 2012 might give some insight into their mission – http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120617/health-fitness/Eastern-remedies-for-the-west.424733#.UrxvvdJDsjs
Actually, we have a problem much worse than Italy’s. Those judgements came after the P2 scandal, which was a relatively minor lodge but with major intentions to take over the state.
Italy had subsequently banned all secret societies, and talks about regulating these, and membership being public, are ongoing – the argument being that banning them outright will only send them underground.
Someone on this blog reported Peralta as being Worshipful Master of two of the renegade lodges which went their way in 2009, or better, the split being imposed after (now former) police officer David Gatt, Mafia fanatic and convicted criminal, was exposed as being one of Peralta’s fellows.
Licio Gelli headed the P2, surrounding himself with generals who actually died fighting organised crime, Dalla Chiesa’s assassination tipping the full degeneration, whereas our own version happens to be a magistrate comfortable to engage with that scum.
This thing is bound to blow up.
Unfortunately Maltese law does not prohibit judges and magistrates from being Freemasons. So while the author of this post is right in his assertions, it also means that, by implication, Magistrate Peralta would appear to be backed up by ECJ case-law if any disciplinary proceedings were to be taken against him on such grounds.
Which means that the Freemasonry thing is irrelevant.
We have to see how the Commission for the Administration of Justice will look at his behaviour.
Given time, it will probably be as assertive in its judgement as it was/is/will be, in Consuelo Herrera’s case.
The point being made in the guest post is that magistrate Peralta has quoted ECHR case law wrongly when the magistrate was answering questions from the media, and the post is not in any way connected to what the Commission for the Administration of Justice (CAJ) will be looking into when it investigates the recent behaviour of magistrate Peralta in Hall 3 of the courts.
In fact, the request by Dr. Owen Bonnici, Parliamentary Secretary for Justice in the Ministry of the Prime Minister, to the President of the Republic as Chairman of the CAJ makes no reference to any investigation relating to the magistrate’s involvement with the freemasonry, if any. The investigation is specifically related to the party thrown in Hall 3 and the arrest of a journalist of The Times, which Dr. Bonnici later described as “abusive and illegal.” See a copy of the letter in the attachment with the article here:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131219/local/party-is-held-in-court-hall.499722
Which means that the CAJ will not be addressing the magistrate’s involvement with freemasonry, if any, at all.
Article 101A (11)(d) of the Maltese Constitution directs the Commission for the Administration of Justice to draw up a code of ethics regulating the conduct of members of the judiciary.
In the said Code of Ethics (link below) on the last page, there is stated that members of Masonic Lodges are incompatible with holding judicial office.
And of course, if I add the link, it might be of some help:
http://www.judiciarymalta.gov.mt/code
This has got nothing to do with the magistrate.
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Earlier this week, I was in Delimara and saw a For Sale sign on the infamous L-Gharix, Dom Mintoff’s summer villa.
Could you please clarify if, when the courts awarded Mintoff and his daughters almost a million euros in compensation when the power station was built close by, did he also keep the villa? Why wasn’t it bought outright by the state, given that this was much more than the value of the house?
[Daphne – Mintoff was given almost a million euros not as compensation for the loss of his property, but as compensation for loss of value due to having a power station built close by. Oddly enough, the loss in value was calculated as almost three times the value of the house itself at the market prices of the time.]
Was that his reward for voting against his own government?
See the last item in the Guidelines to the Code of Ethics for Members of the Judiciary (the Guidelines are an integral part of the Code). This item deals specifically with “Masonic and secret associations”. If that is not clear enough, I do not know what is.