MALTA
Malta Today
A new judge will be assigned to the case of 10 victims of clerical sex abuse after a court upheld the appeal and declared that the men would suffer a breach of their right to a fair hearing if the judge currently presiding over the case failed to recuse himself
Matthew Agius 7 March 2017
The Constitutional Court has effectively ordered the recusal of a judge hearing a claim for damages by 10 victims of clerical sex abuse, saying the victims’ fears that the sitting judge’s involvement in Church-related organisations objectively justified their fears of bias.
Former residents at the Missionary Society of St Paul’s St Joseph Home in Hamrun, Lawrence Grech, Joseph Magro, Leonard Camilleri, David Cassar, Noel Dimech, Angelo Spiteri, Raymond Azzopardi, Charles Falzon, Philip Cauchi and Joseph Mangion had filed a claim for damages against the Missionary Society of St Paul following the 2012 conviction of defrocked Missionary Society of St Paul priests Fr Charles Pulis and Fr Godwin Scerri. Pulis and Scerri were sentenced to five and six years’ imprisonment respectively for sexually abusing a number of boys in their care.
When this case was allotted to judge Joseph R. Micallef, the victims had asked him to recuse himself, citing the judge’s connections to the Church as President of a foundation which runs Catholic radio station Radju Marija.
But Mr Justice Micallef had been of the opinion that the rules regulating recusal in the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure precluded him from abstaining from hearing the case and that he was therefore obliged to hear it.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.