In every law court in Italy, the words “La Giustizia e’ uguale per tutti’ appear emblazoned above the judges’ bench. But among inmates at Corradino Prisons (try calling it a ‘Correctional Facility’ and see what happens), the very notion of justice being ‘equal to all’ provokes at best a coarse laugh, at worst a reaction of anger and bitterness.
In recent weeks I have spoken to a number of persons ‘on the inside’ (to use prison jargon) as well as ‘on the outside’ - i.e., those who have already served their sentences, but still have one or two gripes about the system that landed them there in the first place.
Naturally, every single one of them claims to be either innocent, or undeserving of the harsh sentence they received. But regardless of their individual circumstances (one of the conditions for the interviews, all anonymous, was that we would not discuss the merits of their own cases), a remarkably consistent pattern of complaints begins to swim into view. Perhaps, having spent so much time together, they have honed their various complaints into a single homogenous argument; or perhaps the inconsistencies they all separately describe are indeed realities, plaguing the criminal justice system and undermining public faith in its operations... at least, among the very few in the know.
Justice deferred Foremost among a never-ending list of complaints is the issue of cases being repeatedly deferred to a future date, without any explanation given.
One person currently serving a sentence at Corradino put it this way: “Imagine having waited months behind bars for your trial date to arrive. And then, after you’ve been kept waiting in the courtroom corridor like an animal for three hours, they come and tell you that the case has been deferred. And that’s it. No explanation whatsoever....”
The situation is particularly irksome to foreign nationals, who are rarely provided with interpreters and as a result often cannot follow the goings-on of their own trial. One such example was the case of Aweys Maani Khayre, recently acquitted on appeal after having spent over two years in preventive custody for importation of Khat (which was legal at the time of his arrest).
The duration of his imprisonment was attributable mainly to consistent deferrals, made doubly frustrating by the fact that proceedings unaccountably carried on in Maltese, despite his consistent demands for hearings in English (to which he had a Constitutional right).
Khayre is now suing the State for compensation over his unduly prolonged legal ordeal. ‘Insiders’ (again, to use the jargon) generally sympathise, although they do not consider his two-year waiting period to be particularly excessive... especially when some people have been waiting for the commencement of their trial for more than double that time, and still counting.
Bailing out Excessive delays are often a sore point among defendants... but in some cases matters are greatly exacerbated by the regime currently in place for establishing bail. One inmate described the situation as follows:
“Bail is a big problem, because for many people the sum is fixed at an amount they can’t afford, and therefore they have to remain in prison regardless. I know one case who has been behind bars for four years, because he can’t afford bail which was set at €500...”
In some cases, the irony is further compounded by the fact that the cost of maintaining someone in prison often outweighs the ‘cost’ of the original offence.
“There are people currently in prison over a fine, which has been converted into a sentence to be ‘paid’ at a rate of €11.65 a day. But at the same time, the cost of keeping someone in prison, paid for by the State, amounts to €53 a day. Wouldn’t it make more sense to give these people work to do in the community, instead of a prison sentence?”
Upstairs, Downstairs Overwhelmingly, however, the common complaints concern discrepancies between different sentences meted out for similar, sometimes identical offences: an anomaly which is often manifest at the very earliest stages of a trial, long before the sentence is handed down.
In fact, the severity of a sentence depends on the choice of court – lower or upper – which hears the case. The decision to file charges in either of these two courts falls to the Office of the Attorney General, and the implications are weighty. In the lower (Magistrates) court, the maximum sentence is fixed at 10 years, whereas the Upper (Judges’) Courts are empowered to hand down longer sentences, including life.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, defence lawyers as a rule tend to argue for their clients’ case to be heard ‘downstairs’, while the prosecution often presses for the ‘upstairs’ version of justice.
Some cases are fairly standard: crimes such as murder and drug importation (depending on amount, and other mitigating circumstances) are generally heard in the Upper Courts... but there is room for discretion on a number of other possible offences, depending on what specific charges are brought forward.
For instance, it is up to the prosecution to decide whether to classify an assault case as an ‘attempted murder’ (as opposed to ‘assault and battery’, or even just ‘disturbing the peace’), whereupon it will most likely be heard in the Judge’s court.
This situation, inmates claim, is often used as the ‘carrot’ in a typical ‘carrot and stick’ police interrogation technique.
“Take the example of someone caught with 200 grammes of cocaine, who – because he agrees to testify against someone else, without any other evidence apart from his testimony – has his case heard ‘downstairs’. He will face a maximum of 10 years, but the other suspect will undergo a trial by jury and could conceivably face life in prison. There are cases where this has happened, even when the second case involved smaller quantities of drugs. Why? Because the testimony of the first suspect, even without any other evidence, will have been considered enough to convict the second suspect...”
Evidence unnecessary? As illustrated by recent, much-publicised cases – including that of British national Steven Marsden, released on appeal after having been convicted and sentenced to 25 years for drug trafficking – such convictions can often be secured on the strength of minimal evidence presented in court... sometimes, no evidence at all, other than the opinion of the prosecuting officer.
This state of affairs has been made possible by various amendments to the law which enable a case to be built merely on the suspicion of ‘intention to conspire’ to commit a crime – the notorious ‘conspiracy’ law, currently being challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.
“Very often, a witness’s statement in a drugs case will be accepted as Gospel truth, without any additional evidence, simply because the prosecution presents his statement as a fact, and the jury just accepts it,” one person, currently serving a sentence for drug trafficking, complained.
The net result, according to persons on the receiving end, is that “the Attorney General has more power than the courts themselves” – and unlike other juridical systems (such as those of the UK or the United States), the Maltese version features no equivalent of a ‘Judicial Complaints Committee’: normally an autonomous board, sometimes composed of retired judges, which serves as a bastion of last resort for convicted persons who wish to challenge their sentence.
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