Joe Zammit Maempel: “Wenzu Mintoff once tried to kick me in court while he was testifying.”
Read the story in The Malta Independent this morning. If there is any man who can’t be said to be provocative, it is Dr Zammit Maempel. He is extremely reserved, some might say too reserved, polite, civilised, quiet, unassuming and gentlemanly. He is also very correct.
So why would Judge Wenzu Mintoff hate him so much that he is unable to control himself and tries to kick him in court?
Dr Zammit Maempel is a libel lawyer, who pleads and defends most of the cases involving the Nationalist Party, its media, or PN politicians.
It is important to point out that (Judge) Wenzu Mintoff was in court not as a lawyer – he didn’t practise in court, which disqualifies him for the post under our Constitution, but this is now a corrupt dictatorship of sorts – but to give evidence in yet another libel suit.
The Malta Independent reports:
The newly-appointed judge and former Labour MP Wenzu Mintoff once tried to kick lawyer Joseph Zammit Maempel during a court hearing.
Dr Mintoff, then a lawyer, was testifying from the witness stand when he suddenly lashed out at Dr Zammit Maempel, much to everyone’s horror in the courtroom.
Dr Zammit Maempel confirmed the incident to The Malta Independent. He said he will not accept any of his cases to be heard by Mr Justice Mintoff.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-07-18/news/wenzu-mintoff-tried-to-kick-me-from-the-witness-stand-lawyer-5880217602/
The scum is reaching the surface again.
He (Mintoff) once wanted to come over to Bidnija and beat the living daylights out of you (you, personally: DCG). It was Toni Abela who restrained him.
Interesting.
Lou Bondi was left stunned on air when Mintoff degenerated into a vicious rant of what could be in store for him.
So his uncle was daqsxejn mqareb.
What does Franco The Cock have to say about Wenzu Mintoff’s appointment?
What can he say? It’s an excellent “Hu Go Fik” type of appointment.
I am actually surprised why Dr. Diva Debono has not yet been promoted to magistrate. Maybe Muscat finally realised how incompetent this Debono is. In a over a year as Law Commissioner he has not yet presented one single report. L-aqwa il-kar u x-xowfer.
Nothing. He’s above politics now. Joseph shut him up. What a tool.
Because of appointments based on loyalty and not on merit, we now have an army whose first loyalty is to the PL government and not to the Constitution.
Is this a first step to take over the judiciary as well, or at least part of it?
You’re right of course. As a matter of fact, before (i.e. 2008-2013) we had an army whose loyalty rested solely with the NP core’s whims and fancies and those of the select few who were promoted to its top ranks on the basis of such “merit”. Feel free to expand further.
Finally, you may change name on different posts, I’m sure you’re so sly to count that as an added merit. Try some lemon tea, it helps with indigestion.
Once more; a buon rendere.
Reform of Justice Comission Report with 499 suggestions on court reform, MOU with Libya for Purchase of Cheaper Oil and the applause that followed, Second MOU with Libya and all the Manwel photographs, MOU with China and Sai Mizzi crying poor on TV. And let’s gauge what the total sum of all this is in national terms. Waste of money and time on one side and Sweet Fanny Annie on the other. This bunch is more theatrical than the MADC.
When someone as reserved as Dr Zammit Maempel feels he has to speak out to the media, the situation must really have reached critical levels.
Meanwhile, the Opposition is still being “prudent”.
You mean the Opposition is being apologetic and desperately searching for something “positive” to say.
In this tu quouque culture the PN is always wrong and not positive. The party leadership is constituted by a bunch of traitors always acting against national interest.
Ref,. to the last sentence:
Are we to understand that lawyers can actually choose the judge to hear their cases? ..
This shows the arrogance of some.
[Daphne – Deliberately misunderstanding as usual, Mr Loporto? A lawyer’s brief is a job – you can take it or leave it, accept it or refuse it. What Dr Zammit Maempel is saying here is that if a case in which he is involved is appointed for hearing by Wenzu Mintoff, he will relinquish the brief. But under his client’s right to a fair hearing, he also has a very strong suit to have the case reassigned to another judge, for the same reason that I would have if a case in which I am involved is assigned to him.]
May I suggest you take it easy Mrs Daphne . At this rate you will soon run out of judges to hear any cases you might have.
No it’s not a case of misunderstanding, he clearly meant those cases where he is representing a client. who of course has a right to ask for his case to be assigned to another judge for valid reasons but surely not because the judge kicked his lawyer, in that case he should change his lawyer not the judge.
[Daphne – ‘He should change his lawyer not the judge’. Wrong. We have a right to choose our lawyer, so much so that if our lawyer is indisposed over a long period, the case has to be postponed for the duration. Your understanding of basic rights is very feeble: you cannot tell a person ‘change your lawyer because this lawyer can’t appear before this judge’. What you do is reassign the case to a different judge.]
Definitely Mintoff’s son and not just his nephew. But then the genes for viciousness don’t have to be inherited directly.
” If there is any man who can’t be said to be provocative, it is Dr Zammit Maempel. He is extremely reserved, some might say too reserved, polite, civilised, quiet, unassuming and gentlemanly. He is also very correct”
He certainly knows how to provoke people in court. Any lawyer will tell you that.
[Daphne – Absolute rubbish. What is, in fact, remarkable is the way he does not react to the extreme rudeness and aggression of some witnesses and lawyers. I, too, am treated with systematic aggression and hostility by Labour Party-affiliated lawyers. A court hearing once had to be suspended because the lawyer for the opposing party, a Labour electoral candidate, became extremely aggressive towards me. It is not because I have provoked them, but because they can’t cope with rationality and also because they bring all their chips to bear and imagine they are being condescended to when they are not.]
As a lawyer who has been on the opposite side of Joe Zammit Maempel in several cases, I can say that he is always a loyal and correct colleague.
There are also various Labour-leaning lawyers who are always in court, who behave correctly and would have made good judges (Anna Mallia, John Vassallo, Noel Camilleri, Paul Lia etc to name a few).
The fact that none of them, nor some hard-working magistrate, was chosen as a judge but Wenzu Mintoff was when he has no court experience to speak of, in spite of what he says, has been greeted with disbelief in court circles.
He will definitely take two or three years to learn the ropes and in the meanwhile, God forbid that some complex civil case should be appointed before him. One can only speculate whether Wenzu Mintoff was kicked upstairs and the powers-that-be wanted him out of the way of Malta Enterprise because otherwise this appointment makes absolutely no sense.
I think that even he will find it difficult to adapt to his new role considering his dearth of legal practice.
Paul Lia? Please.
You mentioned Paul Lia. Do you really work at the lawcourts?
Jagħti biż-żewġ bħal ħmir.
Animal Farm revisited.
What this government has done in the few months after it has been given power is frightening. We complain but they are still there to rule over us, and mock us with their arrogance and abuse.
They’ve been given a blank cheque and nobody can take it back now.
I think the Maltese language is great for this: biex bicca pastazz sar imhallef, vera missghejnha il qieh.
Don’t be silly – the Prime Minister has reassured everyone on the front page of the Times of Malta that Judge Lawrence (not Wenzu!) Mintoff is up to the job and will be impartial and fair. So there you have it.
Why are the people of that Island not barricading the law courts and protesting against this appointment? Where the hell is the Opposition?
My first ever case as a lawyer was against a client of Dr. Joe Zammit Maempel’s. I was scared to death the very first time round because I knew him to be a very good lawyer and I was as green as your average British garden.
He was indeed a worthy opponent but civil and loyal and never did he abuse of the fact that I was totally green and inexperienced and he could bury me under a ton of experience.
When the lawsuit was decided and we needed to talk to close off some minor pending matters, I thanked him, telling him I had learned a lot from him. His reply was simply: no matter how young or old, all of us never stop learning.
My point is that, yes, he is an excellent cross-examiner and he is a brilliant lawyer but he is a gentleman and the measure of a great lawyer, in my view, also lies in how he/she treats young, inexperienced lawyers.
If Dr. Wenzu Mintoff saw fit to kick and lash out physically at Dr. Zammit Maempel in court, it says volumes about the former but certainly not the latter.
Dr. Mintoff’s appointment is an insult to the judiciary and to the country, not so much because he has not set foot in court except as a witness in libel suits for over twenty years – I certainly do not remember him – but mostly because, for years, he has done nothing but spew hatred and viciousness against anybody he perceived (correctly or incorrectly) to be a political adversary and a judge cannot harbour such animosity.
The argument that “judges are humans too and have a right to their opinion” is quite ill-suited to the case at issue because while judges have a right to their opinion and obviously do have an opinion, they also have to ensure that they administer true justice and that they are SEEN to be doing so.
This is crucial in a democratic society.
Can anybody actually believe that Wenzu Mintoff will be seen to be acting justly, impartially and in the interests of the common good?
I hardly think so.
I am also wondering whether he will be the “Trojan judge”, as it were – planted by this government to influence outcomes of cases particularly if somehow he will be assigned public and administrative law cases and/or constitutional cases and/or cases against the government (for some reason or other).
We will see. I hope it is only my paranoia kicking in.
An incident you must be familiar, regarding this lawyer mentioned http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-07-03/news/dcg-testimony-suspended-due-to-lawyers-behaviour-1979351043/
Jaqaw ma hallilu xejn fil -wirt il -papa’?
Could it be that from his position inside Malta Enterprise he also realised that Mrs Mizzi’s post is a scam and he wanted his cake too?
More than that, could it be that he had access to sensitive information with which he could blackmail? He suffered at the hands of a blackmailer and, in any case, this seems the way so many people in the PL camp operate.
As an aside, it seems very strange that he was made a judge rather than a magistrate. It is like getting two promotions at one go (or more precisely, a promotion concurrent with an appointment).
It is not strange to get two or more promotions at one go under this government. Just look at the AFM.
Wonderful just as we are going to be rid of one scum with Farrugia Sacco retiring instead of being impeached, as he should have been, we are landed with even worse scum. It always amazes me how just when you think that Labour have really hit rock bottom that they manage to find a new depth to sink to.