Justice Minister Owen Bonnici sees nothing wrong with ten members of Cabinet attending the Court of Appeal case regarding the Parliamentary seats saga, as happened earlier this week.
On Monday, no less than 10 Cabinet ministers showed up in court to hear the appeal. Those are Justice Minister Owen Bonnici, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna, Health Minister Chris Fearne, Economy Minister Chris Cardona, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis, Environment Minister Jose Herrera, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela and Parliamentary Secretaries Chris Agius, Deborah Schembri and Roderick Galdes.
Back in May of this year, the First Hall of the Civil Court in its Constitutional jurisdiction had ruled that the Electoral Commission should repair the mistakes that were committed during the vote counting process and award two additional seats to the Nationalist Party. The PL had appealed and the case is now being heard before three judges.
Asked to explain the presence of the 10 Cabinet members in the Court of Appeal, he said: “I believe that as much as the Opposition leader has the right to attend open sittings in court concerning a very important case, I think that any other person, including myself, has the right to attend and listen to the hearing regarding a very important constitutional case which can change a lot of principles we know today. What I and my Cabinet colleagues did not do was go in front of the law court protesting and causing hullabaloo, as Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil and Dr Jason Azzopardi had done a few months ago”.
Told that the presence of 10 members of Cabinet, including the Minister for Justice, could be seen as an attempt to exert pressure on the courts, Dr Bonnici said: “We are speaking about a case where the government was party, the Attorney General is party to the case, the Labour party is as well and I am a part of the party, as are my colleagues. This is a very important case, and I believe attending such an important court case, is perfectly within our rights. We went to the court room, sat quietly without any problems, acting exactly as the Leader of the Opposition, his Shadow Minister for Justice and his Deputy who were in the court room acted. In fact, the last two were even sitting where the lawyers sit in court, since they are practicing lawyers, as they have full right to do”.
Asked whether there was any attempt or intention to put any sort of pressure on the judiciary, he said – “No. I’m honestly trying to understand why you are asking this question, as the leader of the Opposition was there as well”. He again reiterated that Dr Busuttil, shadow ministers and government ministers were present. “I think there is absolutely nothing out of this world with members of Cabinet going to observe the constitutional case”.
He also said that the case concerns his colleagues.
This newsroom also asked Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil whether his presence and that of other PN elected officials at the court hearings, was an attempt to influence or put pressure on the court. In response, Dr Busuttil said: “I attended the court hearings because, as leader of the Nationalist Party, I am a party to the case and therefore it is not just my right but also my duty to be present. In fact I have been present for many sittings over the past three and a half years. The same applies to our Secretary General Rosette Thake as well as MPs Claudette Buttigieg and Frederick Azzopardi and Mosta mayor Edwin Vassallo, all of whom were parties to the case in their own right.
“The same does not apply to the Cabinet ministers (with the exception of Finance Minister Edward Scicluna and Parliamentary Secretary for the Rights of Persons with Disability Justyne Caruana) who had no place to be there. But more to the Justice Minister whose presence there was ethically wrong and could only serve to apply unwarranted pressure on the court.
“This was the first time ever that almost the entire Cabinet of Ministers turned up in court in this manner.”