A letter from the Office of the Chief Justice to Malta Today
Malta Today gets its knickers in a twist about the magistrate's integrity
The Department of Information today released the text of a letter sent by the Office of the Chief Justic to the editor of Malta Today, last Monday. Here it is.
15 February 2010
Sir,
I refer to the article by Mr Raphael Vassallo appearing in yesterday’s edition of your paper under the title “Blog’s objections to magistrates ‘pointless’”.
In the article it is stated that “… columnist Caruana Galizia petitioned the Chief Justice to have Magistrate Consuelo Scerri-Herrera removed from two libel cases in which she was involved…”. This is entirely not true. The Chief Justice has never received any “petition” from Mrs Caruana Galizia or from anyone else for that matter, to have the cases to which the columnist refers transferred from one court to another.
These two cases were only reassigned to another Magistrate in terms of Article 11(4) and 15 of the Code of Organisation and Civil
Procedure after Magistrate Scerri-Herrera’s decree of abstention was brought to the Chief Justice’s attention according to law.
The article also states that “… it transpired that a meeting was [held] between Scerri-Herrera and Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano on the same morning of her abstention…”. This is entirely a figment of your columnist’s imagination. No such meeting was held either on the morning in question or on any other day between Magistrate Scerri-Herrera and the Chief Justice in connection with these cases; nor was the matter of her abstention ever discussed with her either verbally or in any correspondence.
You are requested to effect the necessary correction in the next issue of your newspaper.
Dr. Marse-Ann Farrugia
Judicial Assistant and Legal Secretary
Office of the Chief Justice 17 February 2010
11 Comments Comment
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I think egg-on-face is the fashion du jour for some people at Malta Today.
so when you said you were petitioning chief justice you were either lying or The Office of the Chief Justice is lying. ….Raphael vassallo was quoting your blog when when he wrote about it
I think its curtains and you have been check mated!
[Daphne – Nobody was lying except Raphael Vassallo in Malta Today. Unlike many others in this country whose English is actually pidgin, Mr Vassallo is a specialist in the English language and the son of a professor in the field who has taught the subject at tertiary level for as long as I have known him. Mr Vassallo knows, therefore, that in English ‘I am petitioning the chief justice’ is an indication of immediate intent used in substitute for the future tense, rather than – as it has been interpreted by the pidgin lot – a description of a current action (present tense).]
Raphael Vassallo’s article also said “However, it transpired that a meeting was held between Scerri-Herrera and Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano on the same morning of her abstention”
Who was Raphael Vassallo quoting then? His claim was denied by the office of the Chief Justice.
Gwap, (u vera gwap)
To simplify matters further for you Daphne never said “I petitioned”!
Will it be the usual ‘Malta Today stands by its story’? Their credibility is always increasing its percentage points.
They’d better stand by their story. No one else is doing so – not even their story subject .
Dear Daphne
I quite agree with you. You only wrote that you intended to make a petition which indicated a future action that you would have resorted to. However I feel Mr Vassallo only misquoted what you wrote (not taking in consideration the present and future tense). I don’t think he intended to lie if there was no other reason to do so.
So tell us – why did you say you “intended” to petition the Chief Justice when having a lawyer hubby you probably already knew it was useless?
[Daphne – Of course it’s not useless.]
Twanny:
If you need legal advice, it’s best not to rely on second hand information published in a newspaper.
seconded
Malta Today is steadily becoming a haven for those shouldering big chips.