Alfred Degiorgio’s rights were not breached when incriminating mobile phone data was used to convict him, the Constitutional Court said in a judgement on Monday.

Degiorgio, one of the people convicted of killing Daphne Caruana Galizia, filed the case claiming that the use of mobile phone data that was kept on the basis of a subsequently null EU directive had breached his fundamental rights.

The First Hall of the Civil Court in its Constitutional Jurisdiction had already thrown the case out in May 2022.

Degiorgio subsequently appealed the decision, which was decided on Monday by the Constitutional Court, presided over by Judges Mark Chetchuti, Giannino Caruana Demajo and Anthony Ellul.

The court observed that Degiorgio had been convicted of Daphne’s murder and sentenced to a 40-year jail term on his own admission after this case had already been filed.

Subsequently, Degiorgio was invited to drop these proceedings, as they had been intended to prevent the use of the data evidence in the trial. However, he insisted on its continuance.

When the Court of Criminal appeal had also denied this case, Degiorgio had sought a different route to keep it going, saying that an ongoing case before the First Hall of the Civil Court could also impact the outcome of this case.

“The court read the initial application for that case, in which the plaintiff and his brother… were requesting a declaration that their fundamental rights to a fair hearing would be breached by the fact that their lawyer had given up his brief and ceased to assist them and they were to be represented by a legal aid lawyer.”

But the court found that this ultimately had nothing to do with Degiorgio’s admission, noting that this case had been filed before the trial was set to proceed.

Degiorgio’s trial had not occurred because he and his brother had chosen to admit to the charges brought against them and despite filing an appeal in which they had not contested their guilty plea, that appeal had been rejected.

In this context, the court ruled that  Degiorgio no longer had any juridical interest in continuing this appeal.

The costs of the case were also ordered to be billed to Degiorgio.