Court rejects Repubblika's breach of rights claims in Nadine Lia case

A constitutional court has declared that NGO Repubblika could not claim that its fundamental rights would suffer if challenge proceedings filed by the group were to continue to be heard by Magistrate Nadine Lia. 

This was the outcome of a judgment delivered on Friday in the ongoing court saga revolving around Repubblika’s attempts to challenge the Police Commissioner to prosecute former top officials at Pilatus Bank, following directions by an inquiring magistrate who investigated suspected financial crimes at the now-shuttered bank. 

Those challenge proceedings were assigned to Magistrate Lia who, in view of her familial ties to lawyer Pawlu Lia, was deemed by Repubblika as having a conflict of interest.

After failing to obtain the magistrate’s recusal, Repubblika filed a constitutional lawsuit claiming that its fundamental right to a fair hearing would be breached if Magistrate Lia were to continue to hear the case. 

The magistrate’s father-in-law was the lawyer of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his chief-of-staff Keith Schembri. 

He was the lawyer who set out the terms of reference for the Egrant inquiry wherein Pilatus Bank featured prominently. 

Another court had...