Jaccarini application to be heard anew

The Constitutional Court yesterday upheld an appeal filed by Prof. Anthony Jaccarini and ordered that his constitutional application be heard anew by the First Hall of the Civil Court.

Prof. Jaccarani had filed a constitutional application in 2005 claiming that, among other things, his right to a fair hearing had been breached in a ruling given by the Permanent Commission Against Corruption.

He filed the application against the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, the Justice and Home Affairs Minister, the University Rector and the chairman and members of the commission.

Prof. Jaccarini explained that the case dated back to 1978. In July of that year, a time of political turmoil, he resigned from his post at the University of Malta's Department of Pharmacy and was appointed Chairman of Pharmacology at King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia.

In July 1987 the Medical Association of Malta (MAM) informed Prof. Jaccarini that, according to an agreement reached with the government in May of that year, he would be listed to be reintegrated into the University of Malta.

So he left the Saudi university and, as laid down in directives issued by MAM, he and other professors applied for the reinstatement.

But while the other professors were reinstated in the same posts of professors and heads of departments they had previously occupied, he was not.

He took his request to be reinstated in the post occupied between 1971 and 1978 to the University Council which was also dealing with a request by the rector to appoint the rector's brother, Dr Serracino Inglott, as acting head of pharmacy.

The council eventually decided to appoint Dr Serracino Inglott. Prof. Jaccarini was therefore deprived of the privileges that retired university professors, in the post he deserved, benefit from.

In a judgment handed down on June 28, 1993, the Commission for the Investigation of Injustices declared that an injustice against Prof. Jaccarini had been committed.

In its decision the commission said that "although Prof. Peter Serracino Inglott denied that the manoeuvre was influenced by considerations involving a relative, the commission was not morally convinced that this was the case".

In light of this, Prof. Jaccarini took his case to the Permanent Commission Against Corruption (KPK) in December 1993.

In a ruling handed down 10 years later the commission declared that it was not satisfied that corruption had been committed.

Prof. Jaccarini claimed that the ways in which the authorities concerned had acted in his regard were in breach of the Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights.

He explained that his right to a fair hearing, his right to an effective remedy, his right to protection from inhuman and degrading treatment and his right to peacefully benefit from his possessions had all been breached.

In June 2006 the First Hall of the Civil Court had ruled that defendants were non-suited and Prof. Jaccarini appealed to the Constitutional Court composed of Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice Joseph D. Camilleri and Mr Justice Joseph A. Filletti. The issue, said the appellate court, revolved upon the determination of whether the KPK was a body that had to determine civil rights and obligations.

It was obvious that the KPK was established by law to investigate whether an injustice had occurred, and it also had a secondary advisory role.

The KPK was therefore not a judicial organ, said the court.

As a result, Prof. Jaccarini's complaint had not been decided upon by the KPK, said the Constitutional Court.

In conclusion the Constitutional Court confirmed that part of the first court's judgment which had found the KPK to be non-suited.

The court, however, revoked the first court's judgment insofar as it had found all defendants to be non-suited.

The case was remitted to the First Hall of the Civil Court for a decision on the issue of the other defendants.