Look what the top student and top criminal lawyer has been up to now. I wonder what his constituents think.
Nice work, Franco - society will thank you for it.
timesofmalta.com, earlier today:
ACCUSED WHO FLED THE COUNTRY GRANTED BAIL A SECOND TIME
An alleged drug trafficker who breached bail and was on his way to Thailand through the Netherlands has managed to secure bail for a second time.
Jeremy Ciantar, 41, stands charged, together with two other men, of trafficking almost eight kilogrammes of cannabis resin in October 2008.
He had been granted bail but when he stopped signing the bail book, the police looked for him and realised he left the country using false documents.
Mr Ciantar was tracked in the Netherlands through a European Arrest Warrant, as he was about to board a flight to Thailand.
He was brought back to Malta in October last year and remanded in custody.
He was this morning released on bail once again against a personal guarantee of €15,000 and a deposit of €15,000. He was also placed him on a curfew and ordered to sign the bail book every day.
Lawyer Franco Debono appeared for the accused.
Lawyer Franco Debono? How about member of parliament, Franco Debono? Or ‘I Know Best About Justice’ Franco Debono?
Disgraceful.
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I can’t see any wrong in this. He has done his obligation towards his client. He requested bail and was granted.
[Daphne – He’s a member of parliament, Mario. Would his constituents have wished him to work to release this person into society, in conditions which indicate that he might try to escape justice again? He cannot serve the interests of his constituents and also of his clients. This applies not only to him – there are other MPs in the same fix, which they ignore or pretend doesn’t matter.]
Daphne , Franco Debono is part of the story, he did not hand down the sentence and he was not the prosecuting officer.
Franco won’t make a circle square without other people’s intentional help or through their crass incompetency.
Franco has proven once again that our justice system needs a much needed radical reform.
MPs should be paid parliamentarians and cease from working in their profession, whether they are cesspit plumbers, economists, lawyers, accountants, nursing-aides, doctors, architects or what-have-you.
Mintoff once tackled the problem by making a law which prohibited lawyer/MPs from defending their clients in court. But he tackled it in his usual bulldozer/miserly fashion.
ALL MPs should be paid a pre-agreed decent honoraria and obliged to stop practising their profession once they are elected. If they are not re-elected they should be given a six month ‘dole’, and can re-start practising their respective professions.
You are assigning good faith to Mintoff where there was none – and you are factually incorrect.
Mintoff’s law did not prohibit lawyer MPs from defending their clients in court. It prevented them from representing people who had sued his government, a rather different proposition, don’t you think?
Thank you for correcting my mistake. That was some 30 years ago I guess, and I recall lawyer/MP Joe Brincat suing the government on something after the law was removed.
I am extremely curious to know who the magistrate was.
I don’t think that criminal lawyers should stand for election, or that political parties should accept them.
If they are full time parliamentarians and paid accordingly all MPs should be made to stop working under any profession. Once they are not re-elected I agree that they be given a six month ‘dole’ and re-start practicing their profession.
Again, I don’t understand what the news value is in naming the defence counsel , and not shaming the magistrate who granted the bail.
It is about time a name-and-shame system was started for members of the judiciary.