Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers cleared of trying to bribe journalist

Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers have been cleared of trying to bribe a journalist, after the magistrate responsible for the case said that the Attorney General’s office had failed to specify the relevant type of bribery.

The judgement was delivered on Monday in the case involving lawyers, Gianluca Caruana Curran and Charles Mercieca, who were accused of trying to bribe Times of Malta journalist, Ivan Martin.

Martin had testified that Caruana Curran had attempted to give him a folded roll of notes, after a meeting between him and the two lawyers in Valletta in November 2020. Caruana Curran on his part admitted that he had been offered “remuneration”, but that this was only because he had never dealt with a journalist before, and wasn’t sure what to do.

In her judgement on the case, Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras said that while the lawyers had been charged with active bribery, and that the compilation of evidence was set out in such a manner by the prosecution so as to reflect these charges, the Attorney General had indicated a different provision of law – one which concerned passive bribery in the private sector – in it’s note for referral.

In effect, active corruption can be defined as a person paying or promising to pay a bribe, while passive corruption concerns any person who is soliciting or accepting such a bribe.

In this case, the only person who could have been feasibly charged with passive corruption could have been Ivan Martin himself, but the judgement acknowledged and specified that Martin had refused any offer of money made to him, and that from the beginning, the prosecution had no intention to charge him, in relation to the case itself.

The court said that because it was clear that no crime related to passive corruption had occurred, it is inconceivable that the accused could be considered as being complicit in such a crime.

Because the note of referral on the case based itself on passive bribery, the court said that under the circumstances it did not consider it necessary to make ulterior considerations, other than those already made.

With the above procedural errors in mind, the court cleared the two lawyers of the charges brought against them.

Giannella de Marco and Stephen Tonna Lowell appeared for Caruana Curran and Mercieca as defence counsel.

‘These are not mistakes’ - NGO calls again for resignation or removal of Attorney General

In a statement issued soon after the news emerged, the NGO Repubblika called again for the resignation or removal of Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg.

It is unacceptable that “a court finds that two lawyers tried to bribe a journalist… but cannot be found guilty”, because of a mistake committed by the AG, Repubblika said.

A journalist said that he had been bribed, where the police had investigated the matter and charged the alleged perpetrators in court, but the AG had submitted “the wrong accusation”, leading to the perpetrators being able to walk free, the NGO said.

These are not mistakes, the NGO said.

“It is unacceptable that the government remains silent on this. The rule of law means that everyone is equal before the law, and responsibility must be shouldered”, Repubblika said.

“Parliament has the tools to address these situations if the AG does not resign of her own free will. Otherwise, Parliament would be confirming that there are laws for the gods, and laws for the animals.”