A court has dismissed Yorgen Fenech’s claim that his right to a fair hearing was breached through non-disclosure of all evidence by the prosecution, concluding that the claim was premature.

Judgement was delivered on Friday in a case filed in 2021 by the businessman who is currently awaiting trial as an alleged accomplice in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in October 2017.

Ever since his arrest in November 2019, Fenech put forward numerous requests for all material gathered by investigators in the murder probe to be made available to him in terms of the defendant’s right to full disclosure.

The magistrate presiding over the compilation of evidence had also decreed that police were to disclose information in hand so that Fenech’s lawyers could set up an effective defence.

When delivering judgment, the First Hall, Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction upheld a plea by the State Advocate and the Police Commissioner, as respondents, to the effect that the applicant’s claim was premature since criminal proceedings against him were still ongoing.

Although those proceedings were past the stage of preliminary pleas to the trial, which were decided upon even at appeal, Fenech still had the “chance and possibility” of making his request at the “appropriate forum”.

He could request witnesses to testify and other material evidence to be exhibited if he deemed those to be relevant to his case.

Moreover, on the strength of jurisprudence on the matter, even if those criminal proceedings had reached a more advanced stage, such a complaint regarding the accused’s right to a fair hearing, would still be deemed premature.

And that was because Fenech had other procedural remedies at his disposal, said Madam Justice Audrey Demicoli.

This was even more so in light of the fact that the murder compilation had since been re-opened and new witnesses were being summoned.

Fenech had the faculty and the right to ask for full disclosure of evidence he deemed “imperative” to his defence and to question and cross-examine witnesses during the trial.

While declaring that it was abstaining from taking cognizance of the applicant’s claims, the court urged him to “take advantage of the remedies provided by law at this stage of the criminal proceedings".