When your surname’s not Bonanno

Here’s the full text of a law report from the Times of Malta. I am not leaving anything out or selecting only parts of it so that you too can read it in its entirety (look no editing).

[box type=”shadow”]
Thursday, October 13, 2011, 14:27
Lawyer wants Arbitration Tribunal decision to be declared null

A lawyer representing a man who was involved in a traffic accident this morning called on a court to declare null a decision on the case taken by the Arbitration Centre.

Dr Jose’ Herrera said he was making his request after the Constitutional Court in September declared that forced arbitration, as was the case here, violated the right to a fair hearing.

Dr Herrera is representing Victor Micallef, who was found to have been 50% responsible for a car accident in 2006 and ordered to pay some €3,000. The decision was taken by the Arbitration Tribunal.[/box]

Can someone explain to me why in this country it is lawyers not plaintiffs who make requests to a court? It’s already bad enough when the report starts off with the anonymous “a lawyer” because technically speaking it’s not “a lawyer” but “the plaintiff” who is requesting the court to annul the Arbitration Tribunal decision. Sure, it’s a lawyer who has gone through the legal motions but it will always be the plaintiff’s request – the plaintiff as represented by a lawyer (taken as read).

Most of you will have read of the Premier League case that was decided by the august institution that I work for. Now, how many of you remember the names of the lawyers for the parties who were involved in the referred case? Name one. Just one. I dare you.

Admit it. You probably don’t even remember the name of the publican who was the “star” of the show. Well, we all know it was a lady and that she owned a pub. Fact is that the headlines in most of the papers the next day were not Lawyer So and So wins case before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Most headlines featured “Pub Lady”.

So back to Malta. Not only do we wrongly highlight the lawyer and not the party. It gets better. “The lawyer” is “outed” (surprise, surprise) as Dr Herrera – a potential justice minister in a future Labour government – and “his” case is actually challenging the constitution of a particular tribunal under our laws because its set up might violate the right to a fair hearing.

Somehow I get the feeling that the hacks at the Times received a convenient summary of the case and threw it straight into their Court section. How they do not feel “manipulated” in a Matt Bonanno sort of way just because the “feed” comes straight from a politician is uncanny. How they participate in this blurring of lines between lawyer-client relationship and political advertising without any qualms is unnerving.

People like Franco Debono would do well to have a word or two with the likes of Dr Herrera when it comes to “advertising” particular cases. This kind of “publication” tends to undermine further the faith we have in all four institutions – government, judiciary, parliament and the fourth estate. It does so much faster than an unaccountable Minister or a biased news programme.