Magistrate accuses police commissioner of “tampering with justice system”
Magistrate Depasquale says quite clearly here that he believes the Police Commissioner has colluded with the editor of (Labour Party newspaper) KullHadd to repeatedly avoid the latter being served with a summons to appear before the court in a criminal libel case that has dragged on for 13 years.
He ruled that (acting) Police Commissioner Ray Zammit is guilty of contempt of court and fined him Eur300, ordering that a copy of the decree be sent to Police Minister Manuel Mallia, who he said is “politically responsible” for the Police Commissioner’s behaviour.
Last year the same magistrate ruled that Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit, the immediate predecessor to Ray Zammit, was guilty of contempt of court because his officers repeatedly failed to appear when summoned for criminal libel hearings. He fined him Eur600.
Of course, it goes without saying that when there is a case against me, the police never fail to turn up en masse. On a couple of occasions, between six and eight of them turned up to testify on trumped-up charges against me, hanging around the courtroom all morning waiting for the case to be heard, while their station – Spinola Bay in one case, Msida in another – got by on skeleton staff. On both occasions, the sheer overwhelming enthusiasm with which they turned up in full force for something so minor only served to undermine them and back up my argument of politically-motivated malicious harassment.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141022/local/police-commissioner-found-in-contempt-of-court.540789
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130711/local/police-commissioner-fined-600-for-contempt-of-court.477531
Xi dwejjaq fihom dal-magistrati, always expecting police commissioners to obey the law.
Don’t you just love Police Commissioners under a Labour administration?
Another ‘leading by example’ champion!
Kugin it-tobby ta’ Codruta
“Politically responsible” for il-kugin’s actions.
If he’s the Police Commissioner, mhux li jrid jaghmel?
He’s only acting, remember?
Manwel will say that since his cousin is ‘acting’ what ensued in court was just a ‘farsa’, so no further action is necessary.
Are we supposed to laugh, Manwel?
I do not know of any Police Officer in Labour Party government times who accepted to be promoted to Commissioner of Police, or who actually campaigned to be appointed Commissioner of Police, who did not provide ample evidence that he would be willing to collude with the Labour Party in its nefarious activities.
Skeleton staff there may be but I wouldn’t be surprised if the police force has skeletons in the cupboard as well.
Can a magistrate order the Commissioner of Police to be brought to Court under arrest?
As the magistrate said, this is not a case of forgetfulness or negligence, which would already be bad enough, but a deliberate attempt to thwart the course of justice.
Burglars in those locales shall eagerly await your next summons.
If the Acting Commissioner of Police cannot bring himself to respect the Law and the Courts, who will do so?
Certainly not the Interior Minister, responsible for the Police.
I used to think that all throughout the 25 years PN was in government that they were putting in place a whole network of checks and balances to ensure that certain things that happened in the past would not happen again.
And yet here we are two years after the MLP (not PL as nothing has changed) has taken over and we are back to talking about obstruction of justice, threats to democracy, friendships with dictatorships etc.
What is all the fuss about?
This is deja vu.
I, for one, never expected anything better or different.
This is the MLP in government.
Those who believed otherwise are, or rather were, misguided imbeciles.
In Italian ‘poveri disgraziati’.
As those familiar with the law courts know, lack of service of court documents occurs daily in the law courts in both civil and criminal cases, for a whole variety of reasons. So is this judicial outburst justified?
[Daphne – Yes, it is justified. KullHadd has an office with a reception desk. The editor has working hours. It is impossible for a newspaper editor to avoid service unless the police are in collusion.]
If you read carefully the Times of Malta report, the case involved a former editor of Kulhadd who, I think, no longer works at the newspaper. Therefore this person could not be served at the newspaper office. Probably this is the reason or one of the reasons why the police failed to notify him.
Now we know the magistrate was already informed that the prosecutor could not attend the last sitting. Therefore my question is still valid.
We stopped giving the benefit of the doubt to Labour stooges, David!
A long, long time ago!
This is surely the kind of high standards of discipline and responsibility that the police commisioner is setting for the police corps. Really leading by example.
There is no excuse for not delivering summonses in this modern age. This is all about inefficiency, irresponsibility, disrespect, nonchalance – or worse, collusion.