The promotion of Magistrate Leonard Caruana to Judge raises serious suspicions of government’s interference in the Judicial selection process.
A Judge in Malta is selected through the Judicial Appointments Committee, a subcommittee of the Commission for the Administration of Justice, and is formally appointed by the President of Malta. The Judicial Appointments Committee is currently composed of the Chief Justice, who chairs it; two judges elected by their fellow judges; one magistrate elected by the magistrates; the Auditor General; the Ombudsman; and the President of the Chamber of Advocates.
Leonard Caruana has been serving in the bench for just five years having been appointed Magistrate in 2021. He has been chosen against Magistrate Gabriella Vella who led the inquiry on Vitals and Steward Health Care fraud.
Magistrate Gabriella Vella has a serious track record in her Court and has a lower average pending caseload than other magistrates. She botched up the Vitals investigation by commissioning a fraud who billed the Maltese State a dozen million Euros for an investigation that was incomplete, giving the opportunity for the Attorney-General to throw a weak case in Court that enables the suspects to have an easy ride.
However, the Labour government does not see it that way. Labour has considered the Vitals inquiry a threat against it, and Magistrate Gabriella Vella is, from the Labour government’s perspective, a rival who should be put in check.
The choice of Leonard Caruana by Labour does not seem surprising in hindsight. Magistrate Caruana replaced Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech in the financial crimes Court – a very particular Court which the Labour government has a massive interest in influencing and controlling, given that it is the Court which is adjudicating disgraced Prime Minister Joseph Muscat over his past corruption in government.
Yet, I can be accused that this is all speculation and conjecture. The proof is in the pudding, yada yada yada.
Indeed, if there is any proof, Magistrate Leonard Caruana has never shown any sympathy towards the Prosecutor in his Court, but this is putting it diplomatically. The Magistrate has often taken very controversial decisions in multiple cases in which he liberated suspects over technical errors which absolutely do not seem to be very damning in their seriousness.
Such examples include a woman found innocent of social benefit fraud because the Prosecutor did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that she intended to commit the fraud, despite establishing the fact that the fraud was committed. Another example of a sentence against the Prosecutor over frivolous technicalities includes a sentence freeing a man who was accused of violently assaulting his aunt.
On the other hand, his Court has usually been very friendly with the defence lawyers even cracking jokes with them and and creating an air of comfortable familiarity for them.
I can not prove this, but I think that Judge Leonard Caruana is the Labour government’s man, and this is the only thing that can explain his very quick rise and succession in the Judiciary.
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