Magistrate is accused of political bias

Labour deputy leader Anġlu Farrugia yesterday accused Magistrate Audrey Demicoli of political bias when she acquitted a man of vote rigging in the March 2008 election. The magistrate’s judgment was overturned by an Appeals Court, which found the restaurateur in question guilty of threatening to sack one of his employees if she did not vote for the Nationalist Party. The restaurateur was fined €800. Speaking at a party activity in Rabat, Dr Farrugia did not name the magistrate but referred to the judgment, which she delivered in a case that he had reported himself. He said people expected judgments to be “according to the law”. “Without saying who her (the magistrate’s) father is or explaining his role in the machinery and strategy of the Nationalist Party, the magistrate acquitted this contractor,” he said. “I spoke in Parliament and said that a judgment has to be fair and according to law. This is the responsibility of every member of the judiciary. I insisted on an appeal because we cannot go for another election and have this abuse,” he said. Magistrate Demicoli’s fa­ther, Saviour, has been a PN activist for several years and ran the party’s organising committee in the 1970s...