Since Daniel Holmes’ lawyers has said that many lawyers had come and gone with the family of the accused having to sell their property to finance their son's defence, does this not mean that Mr Holmes was unable to get a good defence?
It is unusual, though not unheard of, for a number of lawyers to be involved in a case, one after the other. Very often, it means that the client has made demands on the lawyer’s time, or requested a line of defence with which the lawyer was not comfortable. It is also often the case that there are personality clashes, of course, given that human beings are involved.
Whatever the reasons in this case, and I have obviously no idea what the actual reasons were, it should not be implied that the lawyers concerned were at fault: sometimes there are ethical grounds which oblige a lawyer to relinquish a case.
It was said during the Constitutional case that legal aid lawyers are paid from the budget vote of the Attorney General, resulting in a situation where the defence lawyer is effectively paid by the prosecution. Is this not unethical?
Absolutely not. It is only unethical when the same lawyer acts for both sides clandestinely or is paid by the other side to undermine the client’s interests.
In the legal aid scenario, the State pays for legal representation, in the same way the Public Defender is funded in the United States and Legal Aid barristers and solicitors are paid in the United Kingdom.
This does not mean that there is any collusion or underhand dealing between the advocates on the two sides: far from it, and I’m frankly disappointed that the suggestion was even made.
Holmes’ father said that ‘It took us twelve months to find another lawyer. At first we approached Dr Manuel Mallia, but after six months he still had not committed to our case. We tried the British High Commission and they supplied us with a short list of lawyers. I'm not sure what expertise these lawyers had but the list was at best useless. This was after the Legal Aid lawyer had told them that it would be in their interests to seek private representation, as the matter was not within his expertise. What are your comments on this?
It is gratifying that the Legal Aid lawyer had the personal and professional integrity to guide his client to seek more expert help; there are some who would not do this. Insofar as concerns length of time it took for counsel to be engaged, I find it very difficult to accept that a renowned criminal lawyer would take so long to decide whether to accept a brief and I suspect that the fault certainly does not lie with Dr Mallia. The British High Commission, like every other embassy, has a list of lawyers but it is not there to make value judgments or recommendations and it is up to the client to choose. This is not a jurisdiction where there is a language problem and it should have been easy for an appropriate lawyer to be found. I’ve certainly never heard of this difficulty before.
Comments were made during the hearing about a lawyer walking out, saying that he did not have the time to go to Gozo to represent Holmes…
It is a lawyer’s right to relinquish representation at any time, though there is an ethical responsibility to do so in a manner that does not prejudice the client and the Courts must seek to ensure that these circumstances do not work against the accused.
There must be more to this aspect and before making too much of this incident, one should establish precisely why the lawyer concerned relinquished the brief.
Are you happy with the Legal Aid system as it is?
There is so much which could be improved and that I am glad that this is a matter which had been taken up by the Minister of Justice.