Robert Strickland has invoked his right to reply on some of the comments made by Judge Emeritus Giovanni Bonello, Chairman of The Strickland Foundation in the article “It is up to the courts to decide whether my claims are justified” website on 7 April 2021, in article published online on Sunday 11 April in Malta Independent.
His full right of reply can be found below:
I should like to reply to Judge Emeritus Giovanni Bonello’s comments, most of which are merely semantics.
Since the 2018 judgment (to my first court case), which Bonello refers to, was appealed by both parties and is awaiting a hearing date, I have avoided all comment about the details of the court cases as I understand this is not encouraged by the Courts. Obviously Bonello feels differently.
Bonello needs to acknowledge that the Strickland Foundation also appealed the judgment in my first case and I will limit myself to merely observing that he has got a number of his facts wrong. For instance, the Foundation has clearly spent nothing on preserving the beautiful gardens that once existed at the Villa when I lived here with my Aunt. The gardens and the garden walls have been totally neglected by the Foundation despite numerous requests by me as well as offers to help with gardening. Indeed, the only maintenance undertaken at the Villa itself, certainly in the last seven years, has been commissioned and paid for by myself. Only the utility bill at the Villa is paid by the Foundation because they refused my offer to pay for it by switching the account into my name. Their gardener, anyway, uses water and electricity.
It was the Judge, in an earlier case, (and not me) who ordered the Executors (and not the Foundation) to provide a full accounting of the income and expenses of my Aunt’s executorship. This was finally provided nearly two years later but, of great concern, the accounting was wholly inaccurate and therefore unacceptable. Judge Bonello is distorting the facts.
Contrary to what Judge Bonello suggests, the executors were both well aware of my criticisms, before they died. I tried, on a number of occasions, to find a solution but all attempts were rejected by the executors. In 2010, just two weeks after I filed my court case against the executors and the Strickland Foundation, they illegally had transferred the majority shareholding in Allied Newspapers (a private exempt company) when they already knew that the Strickland Foundation could not be a shareholder as a “body corporate”. The Strickland Foundation was created in 1979 by Mabel “for herself and her heirs in perpetuity” to replace an earlier Trust.
Judge Bonello even seems to be unaware that the Foundation was actually set up in 1979 and not 1988. He omits to inform the public that the Villa is not, per se, the Foundation’s “rightful seat” as the very first article Mabel set out, quite clearly, was to provide that the seat of the Foundation could relocate “to any other place in Malta” – which, for inexplicable reasons, it has chosen not to do. Instead members of the Strickland Foundation have preferred to harass my Strickland family, until censured by the Judge, in 2018, for trampling on our human rights to live peacefully in our home.
Furthermore it is not true that my aunt Mabel appointed my brother Henry to be a Director of Allied. Henry was, in fact, appointed a Director by Guido Demarco who held Mabel’s power of attorney as she was far too ill to make any decisions at the time. Henry had initially proposed me as a Director, but Demarco refused to accept me and demanded unanimity in the family knowing that one of my cousins would never support me as she had, previously, mistakenly believed herself to be Mabel’s heir. Thus I had to agree with Guido to make Henry a Director, at that stage, in order to ensure that the Strickland family was represented on the Board of Allied when my Aunt died. After her death, I certainly should have stepped into her shoes, as her sole heir, and also become a Director, as was my legitimate expectation. But this was blocked by the executors.
Mabel’s Wills, prior to 1979, allowed for a Trust to hold 55% of the Allied shares until I became a Maltese national. In 1979 the Trust was changed to a Foundation but this was a huge mistake by Demarco and Ganado since a Foundation could never be a shareholder of Allied as a private exempt company, whereas a Trust, with me as its ultimate beneficiary, could be. This was what was originally proposed and as explained by Mabel in a personal letter to me, and which has been recorded in the Courts. The executors did realise their mistake, which is why they held onto the majority shareholding in Allied Newspapers - in their own names for 22 years - failing totally in their fiduciary duties to pass on the shares to their rightful owner. This legacy of the majority shareholding to the Strickland Foundation was therefore invalid.
Until I am given access to Mabel’s papers, as ordered by the Courts, then we can never know my Aunt’s full intentions and there can be no equality of arms in my cases. Why are the Foundation and Demarcos hiding all these documents that will shed light on the situation - 33 years after my aunt died?
Judge Bonello is mistaken, once again, if he thinks I have ever challenged the legitimacy of the Strickland Foundation. I have not. But I am, and will continue to call out its Council members when I am aware they are not carrying out my aunt’s wishes or objectives. The Foundation, since my Aunt’s death has become arcane and unaccountable to the public. Perhaps Judge Bonello can inform the public where the position for Chairman of the Foundation was actually advertised!
Judge Bonello also accuses me of picking and choosing from my aunt’s will but this is hardly true. I actually lived in Malta in 1977 and 1978 with my Aunt. I lived in her home at Villa Parisio where we had many discussions about her wishes and intentions for her Strickland legacy. She had total confidence in me. I think I am therefore better qualified than anyone else to know what she wanted, at that time, even if, as a frail and vulnerable old lady, she was persuaded to change her Will, subsequently.
All of the “ill will generated” between the parties has come from the late executors and Strickland Foundation Council or its employees. This was accepted by the Court, in its 2018 court pronouncement, where it censured the Foundation for abusing my family’s human rights. I would much rather that the Strickland Foundation stopped competing with me for my inheritance and elected me, as Mabel’s heir, onto the Strickland Foundation council and the board of Allied, years ago, as was her obvious intention. This would have been the honest way for people whom my Aunt placed into positions of trust to behave; instead they have hijacked Mabel’s legacy for their own political ends.
The Malta Independent Editorial team declares this matter closed.