Lino Farrugia Sacco: impeachment process to go ahead
Failed Labour candidate David Farrugia Sacco (right), who has been appointed to the Police Board, with his father Lino Farrugia Sacco, who is about to be impeached by parliament.
Just over a year ago, prime minister Gonzi brought before parliament a motion for the impeachment of Judge Farrugia Sacco, after he featured prominently on the front page of The Sunday Times (London) in a report on an Olympic Games ticketing scam.
Farrugia Sacco is president of the Malta Olympic Committee, a position he is not permitted to hold as a judge – it is in violation of the code of ethics – and from which the Commission for the Administration of Justice had instructed him to resign as far back as 2007. He stayed on in defiance.
The Commission has now published its report, saying that claims of wrong-doing had been proven prima facie. There is no evidence of Farrugia Sacco’s involvement in a ticketing scam, the report says, but it was his insistence on staying on as president of the Malta Olympic Committee, despite being instructed to resign, that caused him to end up in that situation.
When the impeachment motion was brought last year, we were just a couple of weeks away from an election campaign which Muscat went on to fight with Farrugia Sacco’s son, David, as one of the main protagonists, side by side with Manuel Mallia at press conferences about the skandlu taz-zejt.
So he said then that he would not support the prime minister’s impeachment motion but would wait instead for the views of the Commission for the Administration of Justice and decide accordingly.
Now that the Commission has pronounced itself, and Muscat is now the prime minister, he has no choice but to keep his word or appear to be protecting one of his own. He has had no compunction about doing that in other circumstances (and its flipside: vindictive behaviour towards those he considers his enemies) but this case is just too contentious. So Farrugia Sacco is to go down as the Labour government’s first sacrificial old ram.
The prime minister this evening told parliament that impeachment proceedings should go ahead at once, which means he plans to make this impeachment his own initiative and obscure the fact that it was Gonzi who brought the motion before the house and he who impeded it because he didn’t want trouble with his people in the thick of an election campaign he intended to fight with the assistance and prominent presence of Farrugia Sacco’s son.
The reality is that nothing has changed between now and then and there is no new information on which to base a decision. Muscat, just like Gonzi a year ago, did not need the Commission for the Administration of Justice to tell him that Farrugia Sacco had violated the code of ethics by staying on as president of the Malta Olympic Committee, refusing to resign when instructed to do so by the Commission, and that he only ended up featuring in The Sunday Times (London) report because he insisted on staying on.
Farrugia Sacco’s anger now will be that a couple of his colleagues in the judiciary, with whom he partied, have got away with much worse, while he’s going down.
I imagine that the chief justice, who is deputy chair of the Commission and who signed its report (the chair is the president of Malta, a personal friend of Farrugia Sacco) will now relieve the judge of his case-load so that people are not forced into a situation where they have to appear before a judge who is being impeached. That would be too much.
NB: impeachment by parliament requires not a simple majority but a two-thirds majority of the house.
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No doubt Farrugia Sacco will be sacrificed, then a little later the arrogant illegal smoker Peralta will be let off with a warning rap across the knuckles and no impeachment motion tabled, doubtless with a little conniving protection from certain friends within the court and magistrate cliques and their political connections.
More scotch, anyone?
‘One impeachment is enough for one parliament’ will be the mantra for the sake of the reputation and the standing of the judiciary.
Ah, but Peralta was involved also in the “illegal” and “abusive” arrest of a journalist of The Times – words of Owen Bonnici.
And why is he wearing someone else’s football gear? Who is Brenton Mifsud?
Brenton Mifsud was a young man who died in 2012. A football tournament started being organised every year in his memory. That must be why his name is written on the shirt.
I am still not sure whether Farrugia Sacco will eventually be impeached. I do not trust Joseph Muscat and those around him.
No, he will NOT be impeached. Judge Farrugia Sacco will start a spurious “human rights” case to challenge the conclusions of the Commission for the Administration of Justice, and the impeachment proceedings in Parliament will be stalled, waiting for the outcome of the constitutional court case.
That law suit will be dragged up to July, when Farrugia Sacco will by then have reached the end of his term of office, and Parliament will have no judge to impeach. He will retire ‘honourably’….
Kollox mahdum bizzilla.
Though the impeachment motion has had to be put before the House, it does not necessarily follow that PL will provide the numbers for the two-thirds majority necessary for the impeachment to go through.
Can Farrugia Sacco resign before the impeachment process? And what happens to his pension in either scenario?
What happens if some government members absent themselves and the impeachment fail to achieve the two-thirds majority?
What are the consequences of an eventual impeachment?
One can’t help but compare the PN’s attitude to corruption and abuse of power by judges with the PL’s.
During his tenure, Eddie Fenech Adami, without ever mincing his words, started impeachment proceedings against Carol Peralta, Anton Depasquale, Noel Arrigo and Patrick Vella.
During his tenure, Lawrence Gonzi started impeachment proceedings against Ray Pace and Lino Farrugia Sacco.
On the other hand, Joseph Muscat should have started impeachment proceedings against Carol Peralta in December as soon as The Times journalist was arrested (the PL itself said that it was an illegal arrest) but all we got instead was Owen Bonnici requesting a lame investigation by the Commission for the Administration of Justice.
This request could have been made by any Maltese citizen. One would have expected something much more substantial and decisive from the government. Clearly, Owen Bonnici just wanted to be seen to be doing something without actually doing much. Many people don’t realise that there is a big difference between the impeachment proceedings started by Eddie Fenech Adami & Lawrence Gonzi and the request made by Owen Bonnici.
It would be helpful if you can point this fact out to your readers, Daphne. Thanks
I have compared the PN and Labour, and there really is no comparison.
Labour gets things done.
The PN just dallies and shilly-shallies.
Now to someone like you, the former is not automatically positive. You will look at the outcome, and judge that by your set of morals. But to a very large chunk of the population, what matters is that things get done. Look, there really is no other way of putting this: we are an extremely backward and unsophisticated society, which admires brutal tactics, regardless of the outcome.
I am no spring chicken but I see everywhere, and not only in Malta, morality going to the dogs.
People, kings and leaders of men are constantly being featured in the news in scams, fraud and hateful vendettas.
Recently we heard about the Spanish princess being charged for fraud. Our judicial system is riddled with wrong-doings and we had ample proof.
Esteemed gents are mentioned in ‘oil’ bribes and Malta being small we hear constantly about corruption.
What about the greedy overseas bank officials and the recession they triggered?
The House of Commons MPs who were claiming fraudulent allowances?
There are so many more.
Maybe I was naive or else maybe because times have changed and not always for the better.
Nowadays money is the be all. It is the new god.
So very sad and all this will probably get worse in the not-distant future. What a world our children are going to find.
He can always resign before the impeachment motion starts being debated in parliament and in the process not losing his pension and other perks.
The Taghna Lkoll camp must now be devising some populist back-against-the-wall stunt, just like the heroic assault on Montekristo.
A correction – he’s no longer president of the MOC. He didn’t stand for re-election early last year, and was duly replaced by Julian Pace Bonello, a man of great integrity, who was the sole and deserving candidate to replace Farrugia Sacco.
Of course his decision not to stand for re-election came several months after the impeachment motion was initiated by Lawrence Gonzi. It was by no means a resignation, or acknowledgment of, well, anything.
Something odd.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-01-13/news/speaker-presents-report-of-justice-commission-on-farrugia-sacco-3674210305/
‘Dr Muscat said that procedures related to Justice Farrugia Sacco are bound by secrecy, and that rightly so, he received a copy of the report of the Commission for the first time today in parliament and had never been given a copy prior to today’s sitting.’
Why did Muscat feel the need to state this? Did anybody from the house ask him if he had prior knowledge?
Would we not be asking a bit too much in asking Joseph Muscat to stick to his word, to keep his promise and that he is an honourable gentleman who honours his word.
After all, could we not see this as being a storm in a tea cup or something trivial that Tony l-Aspro can see to so effectively as that infamous block of ice?
I do believe strongly that I am more intelligent than that and would opt to go smell the coffee to avoid the storm in the tea cup.
In yet another episode from morally-derelict Malta, David Farrugia Sacco was this morning on a panel of two, along with Austin Sammut, discussing the impending impeachment motion on TVAM; with TV presenter Pablo Micallef and token woman Norma Saliba, whose journalistic credentials wouldn’t occupy one side of a post-it note.
Referring to “L-Imhallef Farrugia Sacco” throughout, with a couple of “il-papàs” mumbled in, Dr. Farrugia Sacco slalomed around the white elephant in the room with the grace of a drunk and the blessing of a TV station from which we can no longer expect, let alone receive, any better.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-01-14/news/bus-tickets-cost-non-residents-374m-more-in-2013-3679551488/
On another subject, Joe Mizzi criticises the previous PN administration because it ignored warnings from the EU over the discriminatory tariffs, even though it faced fines. According to Mizzi, the present government is ensuring that the Commission would not initiate legal proceedings against Malta by putting an end to non-resident fares.
This is yet another wrong decision by the PL government on public transport.
For non-residents tickets to be the same as residents, an extra 3.7 million euros are required. This means that fares will have to be raised for residents. The increase of fares will make public transport a less attractive option. People are less likely to choose public transport over the use of their own car. This undermines the concept of encouraging people to use public transport. It also undermines the concept of making the operation of public transport more financially viable by increasing patronage.
The decisions taken by past administration, including the decision on non-resident fares, have to be seen in an overall context, namely that of reducing government subsidies over a period of time by increase public patronage of public transport. This objective was undermined by the PL, section of the media and others who vilified Arriva and the service they were offering, effectively discouraging people from using public transport.
Instead the PL government will create a downward spiral with increasing fares, reduced patronage and increased subsidies.
As for legal action from the EU, the right approach would have been for Malta to make its case and fight it out instead of simply giving a walkover. There are valid arguments for having a different fare for non-residents.