Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco retires with full honours this morning, his 65th birthday, the latest in a long succession of judges and magistrates to retire without being impeached by Parliament.

Dr Farrugia Sacco was born on 22 August, 1949, and was an alumnus of the St Albert the Great College in Valletta before furthering his studies at the University of Malta. He became a notary public in 1972 and a lawyer a year later.

The Labour government of the day appointed him as a Magistrate in 1981 – shortly after he obtained the necessary seven years’ experience as a lawyer – and after sixteen years in the judiciary, another Labour government made him judge in 1997.

Perhaps appropriately, therefore, he gets to retire under yet another Labour government, whose assistance ensured that his career ended without an official blemish.

Most members of the judiciary tend to limit their involvement in outside associations during their term in office, but Dr Farrugia Sacco has been no ordinary judge: his legal and judicial career did not stop him from engaging in various other pursuits.

The tennis enthusiast was a key figure in the development of the sport in Malta. He was a founding member of the Hamrun Tennis Club, one of the first tennis clubs to be established in the country, and served as the president of the Malta Tennis Federation. His son David, who contested the last general election under the Labour Party banner, presently heads the MTF.

His MTF presidency paved the way for his involvement in the Malta Olympic Committee: he became its chairman in 1996 and its president in 1999, even though he was already a judge at the time.

But Dr Farrugia Sacco, who had also served as the vice president of the Hamrun Spartans Football Club, did not solely involve himself in sport: in 1993, he became president of the St Joseph Musical Society of Hamrun.

In fact, his work in Hamrun has led the town’s local council to award it its highest honour – “Gieh il-Hamrun” – in 2005.

An equivalent national honour has so far eluded him, but Dr Farrugia Sacco can take comfort in receiving a generous pension after an unblemished career.

This may only have been possible with the present government’s assistance, after the Commission for the Administration of Justice found prima facie evidence of misbehaviour in the wake of an impeachment motion filed by former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi. The CAJ had previously ruled that the judge should resign from the MOC to avoid a possible conflict of interest, which he had refused to do.

But the process hit a snag when Speaker Anglu Farrugia declared the impeachment motion null since it was filed during the previous legislature and since Dr Gonzi was no longer an MP.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat did file a fresh motion, but his government generously allowed Dr Farrugia Sacco to file one constitutional case after another before holding the vote, even waiting for him to file an appeal on the last possible day – presumably, the judge and his defence team were too busy to do so in the previous two weeks.

The appeal did the trick: it will be dropped, along with the impeachment process, without a single sitting being held.

According to the government, however, the saga was actually a celebration of justice, as it ensured that the judge’s human rights were protected. That the judge was free to present a case claiming a breach to his right to a fair hearing after the vote was taken place – as was mentioned in the constitutional judgment that is presently under appeal – appears to have been beyond its comprehension.

But now that Dr Farrugia Sacco is retired, we are presumably expected to act as though the whole process never happened, as though the above biography is all that should be written on his retirement.

Officially, the impeachment process may well have never happened, although ultimately, there can now be no closure. The judge has not been sanctioned and he will never be, but neither has he been conclusively cleared of wrongdoing save for a technicality; although his legal defence suggests that this ambiguity suits him just fine.