During this week, Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti received another report about improper and potentially corrupt conduct by Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech. The Chief Justice has received a report from a lawyer that Donatella Frendo Dimech approached the prosecutor and this defense lawyer of a case she is hearing to cut a deal with them both for a guilty plea in exchange for a lighter sentence. Neither the prosecutor nor the defense lawyer had solicited the magistrate for such a deal – the magistrate made the offer to both of them herself in the corridors of the law courts.
If this isn’t appropriate behaviour by a magistrate, I don’t know what is.
The Chief Justice’s reply to this lawyer making the report was the same as that given to the three other lawyers making reports on Donatella Frendo Dimech: to testify publicly under oath with these allegations, and none of the lawyers want to do this because they fear for their business. Supposedly the judiciary is objective come what may, but lawyers believe that if they testify against a magistrate and the magistrate gets away with it, they would end up in a situation where the magistrate would purposefully make their life difficult in the courts.
The problem is this, however. Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti had four distinctive reports on Donatella Frendo Dimech and these reports were made by lawyers who are significantly distinct from each other. To put it clearly, some lawyers who made the reports to the Chief Justice are even on the opposing end of the political spectrum, so the Chief Justice has a very clear and consistent picture of affairs from different sources that would have no interest whatsoever to conspire together. Objectively, from where the Chief Justice stands, he has had a very consistent narrative from different sources, separate from each other that presents very damning and serious allegations.
What game is the Chief Justice playing? This is a serious situation where a magistrate is being accused of serious crimes, yet she is allowed to continue her work unchecked.
The least the Chief Justice can do is to suspend Donatella Frendo Dimech from her work and initiate an independent magisterial inquiry on her. Anything short of this, by now, is literally covering up for her.
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