Ex-Judge deems two-year jail term 'excessive and disproportionate'

Former Judge Patrick Vella, who last month was jailed for two years for accepting bribes, yesterday filed an appeal claiming that the punishment was "excessive and disproportionate" to the circumstances of the case.

On March 13, Dr Vella was jailed for two years after he pleaded guilty to trading in influence, revealing official secrets and accepting a Lm10,000 bribe to reduce a drug trafficker's jail term by four years when he presided over the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2002. (Dr Vella had originally been charged together with former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo whose trial is scheduled to start this month.)

The bill of indictment, to which Dr Vella admitted during last month's trial, had alleged that after being jailed for 16 years for trafficking in cocaine, Mario Camilleri had filed an appeal. The appeal was to be decided by Dr Arrigo, Dr Vella and Mr Justice Joseph Filletti. Mr Camilleri's son, Pierre, approached Joseph Zammit, known as Is-Sei, who, in turn, approached Dr Vella to reduce Mr Camilleri's jail term in exchange for Lm10,000.

Dr Vella eventually accepted the bribe and Mr Zammit also approached Dr Arrigo who also accepted.

Mr Justice Filletti was never involved.

In July 2002, the Court of Criminal Appeal reduced Mr Camilleri's judgment to 12 years. That same day Dr Vella collected Lm5,000 from Mr Zammit.

Yesterday, 21 days after he admitted to the crime, Dr Vella filed an appeal - in the Court of Criminal Appeal - calling on the court to confirm the part of the judgment where he was declared guilty but to change the part where he was jailed for two years.

Instead, he asked the appeal court to hand down a punishment that was "more just, fair and appropriate to this case".

In the 10-page appeal, Dr Vella raised three main points.

First, he claimed, the first court was unjust when it arbitrarily discarded the application of article 28A of the Criminal Code, on suspended jail terms, without justifying its decision.

Once the court decided that he deserved a two-year jail term - a term that, according to law, could be suspended - the court did not have any reasons not to suspend the jail term. On the contrary, there resulted several factors that mitigated in favour of a suspended jail term.

He had cooperated with the police from the start of their investigations and provided them with vital evidence in the case against him and against third parties.

Besides, he had voluntarily succumbed when he admitted to the charges, when he voluntarily stepped down from his post as a judge, and when he made a public apology after pleading guilty. Apart from that, he had a clean criminal record.

Given other cases heard before the courts of criminal judicature, such factors would have been applied and led to a suspended jail term.

So, he wondered why, in his case, this did not apply and what was the reason he deserved to be treated differently?

Secondly, Dr Vella argued that the first court seemed to have misunderstood his defence lawyers when they made submissions about the Constitutional Court's decision (which ruled that Dr Vella's right to a fair trial had been violated on the basis of the violation of the presumption of innocence at a news conference given by the Prime Minister in August 2002).

The defence had evoked a section of the law that allowed a point of fact to be raised that, without excluding the imputability, could free him from being punished.

The first court had ruled that the Constitutional Court's judgement was not to be taken into account for the purpose of punishment.

However, Dr Vella argued that it was the facts underlying the constitutional case, and not the judgement itself, that were to have a bearing on the punishment.

In a third ground for appeal, the former judge argued that he felt the punishment was excessive. In its judgment, the first court had ruled that one of the main aims of punishment was the reform of the accused. The court also said it believed he was sorry for his actions.

In these circumstances, why did the court feel he deserved an effective two-year jail term?

"Certainly, once the complete reform of the accused had been established even by the first court, it was not necessary that he would be imprisoned for such a long time for the purpose of reform," the appeal read.

Finally, he argued that the first court was also wrong when it did not order that the time he spent under house arrest be deducted from his jail term.

Lawyers Toni Abela, José Herrera, Michael Sciriha and Roberto Montalto are representing Dr Vella.