Sentencing is a difficult science. When judges pass a sentence they take all sorts of things into account: obviously the legal limits of what they can and cannot do, but also the various factors particular to that crime and the way society and, indeed, they themselves view it at a particular point in history, because none of us are free of our own personal bias and prejudices, whatever lofty position we hold, and however unbiased we pretend to be.

When a judge has to sentence one of his own kind however he, and the very occasional she, is entering completely new and unchartered territory, the kind of territory no lawyer turned judge would ever wish to enter.

So in one sense, I do want to show my appreciation to the judge who accepted the task of trying his former counterpart, who had admitted to committing a criminal act – that of taking a bribe to reduce the sentence given out to a drug trafficker. It doesn’t get much uglier than that, does it? It must have been incredibly difficult for the sentencing judge to look the other judge in the eye, and send his former peer to Corradino for two years.

Many of us felt, however, that the maximum sentence of four years should have been applied, even though we are also amazed that the punishment could be so little. We send people who act as drug couriers off to life in prison, and these are often desperate and poor people.

And the sentence for a judge accepting a bribe and reducing a sentence can only be four years? Why? Don’t we think the deterrent sentence should be at least 15 years for someone who is actually in the position of a judge and is duty bound to try criminals, and who turns out to be a criminal himself?

And while the general sentiment has certainly been that the maximum sentence should have been applied even if just to give an example, many of us looked at this man, a father, a husband and felt, not sympathy for what he had done, but I think sorrow at what he has done to himself, to his family and to his friends.

The whole case has brought the inequalities in Malta’s social fabric to the fore, and I think we should look at that and tackle it, especially at the way we are handling crime and punishment in this country. The system is not being handled fairly, nor is it perceived to be fair, and the inequalities in the system are institutionalised and go way beyond the irresponsible behaviour of people who should have known a lot better.

There is, for example, way too much leniency in the case of sexual predators. Time and time again their identity is protected, and even if found guilty they often only receive a suspended sentence. Why? The judges can order that the child’s identity be protected and so they should. But why that of the accused too? And when they are found guilty, suspended sentences are the order of the day. This sends out a very powerful message to paedophiles that their identity will be protected. After all in a small closed society like ours the biggest punishment you can give is public humiliation.

That is also essentially what the lawyers defending former judge Vella were claiming, that in this public humiliation he has already been punished enough. So paedophiles or those accused of paedophilia, like errant judges, should not have their names protected, and it is an absolute disgrace that they do, and this includes paedophiles who are Church members too. Their identity should not be protected at any stage at all.

Crimes against women too do not appear to attract tough enough sentencing. We continually look at how a woman must have provoked a situation, especially in cases of rape where the clothes of the victim are seen as a contributing factor. You get the impression that women, Malta’s Eves not women really, are just meat, foreign women even cheaper cuts of meat.

We need to keep our sentencing policy under strict scrutiny and review, while not interfering with the very important independence of the judiciary. We need to consider whether the range of sentences allowed reflect modern mores and sensibilities, particularly in the area of paedophilia. Our system of justice and sentencing is one of the most important barometers of how free, democratic and fair our society is. We may tick all the right boxes in EU and other well-being surveys, but I think as far as sentencing goes we have a long way to go in our courts to overcome our class bias, our sex bias and, most shamefully of all, our bias against children too

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