The European Court of Human Rights has expressed “serious doubts” over lack of speediness, systemic flaws and unreasonably low compensation awarded by Maltese courts in tackling complaints about excessively long proceedings.
When delivering judgment, the court awarded €17,000 by way of non-pecuniary damages to two applicants who claimed their fundamental rights were breached on account of excessive delay and a lack of an effective remedy after a 33-year-long saga before the Maltese courts.
Michael Galea, 85, and Edward Pavia, 66, had taken their grievances before the Strasbourg Court in December 2016 after facing 16 years of criminal trial, followed by a further 17-year constitutional battle to redress excessive delays they had experienced before the criminal courts.
The men had been targeted by criminal prosecution back in 1983 over the illegal importation of alcoholic beverages, packed in containers marked as “cheese” to evade customs duties.
Criminal investigations had kicked off following the appearance on the local market of cheap alcoholic beverages, with police ultimately uncovering an alcohol cache at a garage owned by a transport worker.
The containers originated in Germany and their contents were sold by a German company to a Maltese company where Mr Pavia held directorship. Mr Galea, on the other hand, was a public officer at the time.
Both were found guilty before the Magistrates’ Court in 1994, each landing a suspended sentence and a fine of Lm403,430 (€939,738).
In 1998, that judgment was partly varied on appeal with the term for the suspended sentence being reduced in respect of Mr Galea.
The following year, both men embarked upon constitutional proceedings claiming that their rights had been breached since the criminal trial had not taken place within a reasonable time, a court-appointed expert had lacked independence and since there had been a lack of fairness at appeal stage.
Sixteen years later, the First Hall, Civil Court awarded each of the applicants €15,000 for breach of their right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time.
However, that award was slashed to €5,000 each at appeal stage by the Constitutional Court in 2016.
That was when the applicants sought recourse before the European Court of Human Rights.
A chamber of seven judges, including Madam Justice Lorraine Schembri Orland, observed that with respect to the criminal proceedings, as “established by the domestic courts, the reasonable time requirement has been breached”.
As for the constitutional proceedings, these “could not be considered complex”, said the court, noting further that the applicants were not to blame for “delays which were not attributable to them”.
The State was to be held responsible “for delay by judges in delivering their judgments”, stated the court, pointing out that in this case, “no explanation whatsoever has been given for the period of over five years for the judge to deliver a first instance decision”.
This “in itself suffices to find a violation”, observed the court.
The judgment listed key criteria adopted by the ECHR when assessing the effectiveness of the remedy in similar cases, such as, the hearing of the case within a reasonable time, the prompt payment of compensation within six months from date of enforcement of judgment, the fairness of procedural rules as well as the costs which were not to excessively burden the parties.
Compensation was also to compare with awards made by the court in similar cases.
In the light of such considerations, the court expressed “serious doubts about the speediness of the remedial action” and systemic flaws which impacted upon the effectiveness of the remedy granted by the Maltese courts.
“The government has not demonstrated that constitutional redress proceedings, which are an effective remedy in theory, constituted effective remedies in practice for length of proceedings complaints”, said the court, declaring a breach of rights.
It awarded each of the applicants €17,000 in non-pecuniary damages and a further €4,000 each for costs and expenses, payable by the State within three months from date when judgment becomes final.
The court, however, rejected the claim for pecuniary damages since it found no causal link between the financial losses and the violations suffered by the applicants.
Professor Ian Refalo assisted the applicants.