Out of the 28 cases against Malta examined so far by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), 17 were declared inadmissible, eight were declared admissible, and one was declared partially admissible.
Another two cases were declared partially inadmissible, but are still awaiting a decision on other matters.
Of the eight admissible cases, six were upheld, one was settled amicably and the other one is awaiting judgement.
The case awaiting judgement is the one filed by Meinrad Calleja in July 2001 in which he claimed that the proceedings in his trial on drug trafficking charges violated articles 5.3 (the right to a trial within a reasonable period of time) and 6.1 (the right to a fair trial by an independent and impartial tribunal as established at law) of the Convention.
Calleja was held for almost five years in preventive arrest before being brought to trial.
In March, the ECHR ruled that Calleja’s application was admissable.
The first judgement handed down against Malta was in August 1991 in the Demicoli vs Malta case, where the ECHR found if favour of Demicoli as there had been a violation of article 6.1 of the Convention.
Charles Demicoli, then the editor of the satirical newspaper Mhux fl-interess tal-poplu, was summoned to the House of Representatives after a government MP claimed a breach of privilege following an article in the same newspaper in January 1986.
He was found guilty of breach of privilege and fined Lm250 by the House of Representatives.
This ruling by the ECHR led to changes in the legislation regarding the privileges and powers of the House of Representatives, in which the power to sanction breach of privilege was transferred to the Magistrates Courts.
In April 1999, the ECHR ruled in two separate cases – Aquilina vs Malta and T.W. vs Malta – that there had been a violation of article 5.3 of the Convention.
In June 2000, the ECHR ruled yet again in another case – Sabeur Ben Ali vs Malta – that articles 5.3 and 5.4 (the right of those deprived of liberty to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of their detention shall be decided speedily by a court and their release ordered if the detention is not lawful) had been violated.
In January last year, the ECHR ruled in the case of Kadem vs Malta that article 5.4 of the Convention had been violated yet again.
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