The Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday confirmed a judgement handed down to two Malta Transport Authority (ADT) driving examiners who admitted to accepting bribes to pass people sitting for their driving licence examination.

In November 2006, Jason Buttigieg, 33, from Birkirkara and Roderick Galea, 30, from Marsascala were conditionally discharged for three years and were also generally interdicted for life after they admitted to accepting money to carry out their job on and before May 2006.

In her judgement, Magistrate Miriam Hayman said the court was conditionally discharging them for three years because the general and perpetual interdiction was already, in itself, a harsh punishment.

According to law, anyone who is interdicted cannot perform any form of civil acts, such as selling or buying houses or cars and will not be allowed to vote. Someone who is interdicted cannot sign official documents such as contracts and is not allowed to hold a public office.

The Attorney General appealed the judgement and asked the Court of Criminal Appeal to hand down an effective jail term according to law.

In his judgement, Mr Justice David Scicluna, who presided over the Court of Appeal, said that as a general rule, the Court of Appeal does not go into the discretion applied by the first court, as long as this does not go beyond the limits and the parameters of the law.

Mr Justice Scicluna said that the punishment handed down by the first court was, in fact, within the limits established by the law, even when considering that the accused filed a guilty plea early in the proceedings. He therefore turned down the Attorney General’s appeal and confirmed the judgement as handed down by the first court.

Dr Jason Azzopardi and Dr Kris Busietta appeared for the accused.