I refer to your article entitled Court reprimands lawyer for pushing for leniency (TMID, 24 March).

It seems that, obviously, I am not in the good books of your court correspondent lately.

I must state that the way the Court hearing was reported deserves a clarification. Your court correspondent should by now be aware that it is common practice for defence counsel, when it so suits his client during the arraignment, to plead guilty and ask for leniency.

Furthermore, in cases being heard before a Court of Criminal Inquiry, this is the only opportunity that an accused person has in pleading guilty, since it is only at that stage that the court has the authority to convert itself into a Court of Criminal Judicature and give judgement.

Furthermore, according to jurisprudence, for an accused to benefit from a diminution in punishment, he must plead guilty at the first opportunity. To be quite frank, if the court is too overwhelmed by work and under too much pressure, this does not fall within the concern of the particular legal counsel, but should be dealt with by the competent authorities, and should not, under any circumstances, be prejudicial to the accused.

In the particular case, what your court correspondent failed to report is that the punishment proposed by the defence was agreed to beforehand with the prosecution itself; therefore, surely, if the defence council was reprimanded, he was so reprimanded for no just reason, and in this case, as defence counsel, I feel compelled to clarify that I acted in the most ethical and correct manner possible.

Dr Jose Herrera

Valletta

Editorial note: This newspaper’s correspondent highlighted that the magistrate rapped Dr Herrera for insinuating that his client should get the minimum term of 13 months imprisonment. The magistrate pointed out that this person had three aggravating factors which push the minimum term to be served higher. What the magistrate was clearly implying was that he was almost tricked into believing that these “aggravating” factors were not present. The correspondent has covered court for over 10 years and is knowledgeable enough to know whether or not a lawyer is trying to pull a fast one, or could have got it completely wrong.

Whether or not the prosecution and the defence agreed on punishment is irrelevant and it was only the magistrate who realised that the accused was being charged as a relapser, with three aggravating factors in the charges.

Dr Herrera knows full well that while a person should benefit from jurisprudence practice in pleading guilty early, if the defending lawyer said the minimum was 13 months, then he was plain and simply wrong in view of the fact that even 1 simple “aggravju” pushes the punishment above minimum.

The only time a magistrate can go below the minimum is when article 21 is applied which states that if there are “special and (not or) extraordinary” circumstances, the magistrate may go below the minimum term.