Justice Shadow Minister Jason Azzopardi said today that the government has no other option but to refer the nomination of Dr Caroline Farrugia Frendo to become magistrate to the Commission for the Administration of Justice.

Addressing a press conference in front of the Justice Ministry, Dr Azzopardi said that the PN could not understand why the minister was refusing to go to the Commission when even the Dean of the Faculty of Laws, Kavin Aquilina and Judge Giovanni Bonello said that the doubts should be clarified.

“The minister should avoid judicial mayhem. If the new magistrate’s appointment will be successfully challenged in court there would be a disaster as all her sentences would be nullified,” he warned.

He said that if the Justice Minster Owen Bonnici kept  refusing calls to refer the issue to the Commission, he has no doubt that the President of Malta, as the head of the Commission and guardian of the Constitution, would make sure that all clarifications on Dr Farrugia Frendo will be settled before she was sworn in.

“The Leader of the Opposition who occupies a constitutional office already called on the President to make sure that the Constitution is respected and we have no doubt that she will do this. We think that it is only logical to get the Commission’s opinion once there is a doubt. What the Commission says would be respected but we cannot understand why Dr Bonnici is refusing to get advice,” Dr Azzopardi said.

Times of Malta revealed that a member of the commission and Constitutional lawyers expressed their concern that Dr Farrugia Frendo does not satisfy the constitutional requirement to serve as a magistrate.

According to the experts, the time spent by Speaker Anglu Farrugia's daughter as Court Attorney does cannot be counted as part of the seven years legal practice required by the Constitution.