A lawyer yesterday filed an application in court insisting that the time his client spent under house arrest should be deducted from his client’s jail term because this is still a form of preventive custody.

Dr Joe Brincat filed an application before the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction claiming breach of James Demanuele’s human rights as laid down in the European Convention of Human Rights. The application was filed against the Attorney General.

Demanuele, who is presently in jail, was arrested in September 2005 over voluntary damage and threats and also for escaping from police custody. The magistrate who presided over his arraignment granted him bail against a deposit of Lm10,000 – an amount he could not afford. On 21 December, the deposit for bail was reduced to Lm300 and he was also ordered not to leave his house.

On 8 May 2006, he was arrested once again after he was caught outside his house on his way to hospital; he was found guilty of breaching his bail conditions and was sentenced to imprisonment. He was freed immediately since the time he spent in preventive custody was more than the actual jail term.

Dr Brincat claimed that his client’s human rights had been breached and that although the Maltese case-law describes house arrest (although this does not really exist) as a bail condition, the European Court of Justice ruled that house arrest is a form of detention.

Dr Brincat moreover claimed that his client’s rights were further breached when his application to contest the preventive custody as illegal and abusive was sent to the same magistrate who imposed such a hefty deposit for him to be granted bail.

He called on the court to declare that his client’s human rights had been breached and that the house arrest condition was a lack of freedom and therefore a form of detention.