From a legal, judicial and procedural point of view, I find it really jarring and nonsensical to have the police assisted by lawyers from the attorney general's office when prosecuting in front of the inferior courts.

I contend that the AG's office should be further divided by having a separate prosecutions unit headed by a director of public prosecutions, albeit still under the supervision of the Attorney General, along the lines of the English model. The unit would be staffed with lawyers who are delegated to assist the police in prosecuting in the Magistrates' Court.

In England, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is the head of the Prosecution Service and reports to the attorney general.

The attorney general, or her delegates, should limit themselves to conducting prosecutions in the superior courts on behalf of the Republic of Malta, ensuring in all cases, as they are duty-bound by law, that justice is duly served and done. Among other things, this includes the duty to bring forward all evidence in favour of the accused.

Perhaps the justice minister should consider and give this proposal some serious thought.

                                                                Double standards

A requested investigation into Prime Minister Robert Abela's undeclared €180,000 utilised for the purchase of land in Xewkija was rejected by the Standards Commissioner because more than 30 working days had passed since complainant Arnold Cassola got to know of that fact. That ground, provided for by Article 14(2) of the Act on Standards in Public Life (Chapter 570), directs the Commissioner to decline to entertain any such request.

Indeed, it was the prime minister himself who invoked that ground so as not to be investigated for the alleged breach.

That time lapse is too short and nonsensically shackles the commissioner in conducting investigations with the intrinsic aim of the law to uphold and sanction breaches of expected standards in public life.

One can logically understand and accept that the law prohibits the Commissioner from investigating any breaches prior to when the law itself was passed. But to impose a short period ranging from 30 working days to a maximum of a year from when the alleged breach was committed is a drastic legal procedure beyond compare.

Labour boasts that it was the one who removed the plea of prescription in criminal corruption cases while its leader, Robert Abela, here pleads prescription or, rather, a statutory impediment of the Standards Commissioner to investigate an alleged breach of standards.

Perhaps this is another case of a good illustration of double standards, and if we really wish to make headway in upholding standards in public life, our legislators could easily amend the law by a simple majority to give more competence and jurisdiction to the Commissioner in any alleged breach of standards without any prescriptions.

Otherwise, if we continue playing around with legal technicalities, we'll only be making a mockery of the expected standards in public life in Malta.

My message to our MPs: set high standards and few limitations for yourselves.

Will our legislators take the cue?

                                                  Ensuring that electronic tagging will not be a flawed system

While browsing some reading material on how the electronic tagging systems have been operating in more than one EU member state, I came across some common factors that are threatening the whole system to turn out flawed.

A law that introduces electronic tagging was discussed in Parliament some weeks ago. Incidentally, this is a law that had its first reading in Parliament in 2021. In the meantime, on more than one occasion, our judiciary had pleaded for its early introduction.

It is thus that I wish to bring to the attention of the local authorities a few of those factors while we are still on time.

Often the tagging equipment does not work, individuals are recalled to custody unnecessarily and the tagging regime can become gratuitously mechanistic, rigid and bureaucratic.

Complaints encountered on the European mainland included delay in fitting the tag, poor communication between the company, the courts and probation, violations not being brought to court, technical failure and the fact that breaches were not routinely monitored.

There were a number of instances where the tagging company seemed unable to locate the address of the offender, believed that address to be bogus and commenced breach proceedings. The addresses, however, were valid and should have been easy to find on Google.

Probation found that the tagging system tended not to work in rural or isolated areas, and the companies had to revert to manual monitoring by car of the offender's whereabouts. Several probation officers complained that offenders were jailed when clearly it was the equipment that was faulty.

Some offenders complained they were constantly rung up in the middle of the night to check whether they were complying with the order. The tagging signal appeared to have failed when they turned over in bed.

Electronic tagging can become a lucrative business for tagging companies awarded any tender to run and administer the tagging system.

It is imperative, therefore, that the Ministry of Justice and the Home Ministry review again the effectiveness and efficiency of tagging.

While I do not doubt that the government is committed to investing in what works to reduce crime, reoffending and the creation of further victims, it is essential that the equipment is accurate and does not result in any miscarriages of justice.