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News | Sunday, 04 April 2010

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Code of ethics? For magistrates, not for lawyers or politicians

The lawyer and PN candidate who raised the issue of conflict of interest for magistrates in the local press – suggesting a possible impeachment for the beleaguered Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera – has refused to divulge his own business interests and past contracts with government to MaltaToday, despite having earned over €300,000 in government contracts.
Georg Sapiano has refused to state whether these contracts were issued by direct order, or won by successfully competing against other established legal firms in a public tender.
And yet, the same Sapiano hit out at Scerri Herrera for unethical or improper behaviour, after the Magistrate came under a scathing attack by gossip blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia over a private conversation during a dinner party at the Magistrate’s home.
The dinner party had talked about Mrs Caruana Galizia’s husband, who had lodged a police report against his wife after a plate-throwing incident on 8 December 2009. TVM presenter Lou Bondi was present for the dinner party.
In an attempt to divert public attention from the incident involving her husband, the blogger launched a vitriolic and sustained attack on the life of the Magistrate, posting pictures which the Magistrate herself had clumsily uploaded on Facebook, the social networking site.
Anecdotes and unfounded accusations on the Magistrate’s personal life were also posted on Mrs Caruana Galizia’s blog. It was on the basis of these allegations that Georg Sapiano raised the impeachment possibility in an article in The Sunday Times.
The flamboyant and successful lawyer, who is driven around in a saloon BMW similar to that of the President of the Republic, was an articulate TV presenter on NET and PBS and is a Nationalist candidate.
MaltaToday this week asked him whether he would be willing to declare his own net asset value and divulge information on his land and property deals. Sapiano is known to be heavily involved in land speculation and property sales.
He was also asked to express his opinion about the comments on Caruana Galizia’s blog. However, Sapiano said that he did not feel the need to divulge the details of his business interests and information about the government contracts. He said he would do this when a code of ethics for candidates was put into place.
He also refused to comment on the other questions.
Georg Sapiano is a close friend of Fr Joe Borg who served as Editorial chief of PBS for several years, and who was invited on Bondiplus to discuss Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera’s case. Another of his close friends in Charles Demicoli, a former police officer turned businessmen who owned Sterling car parks (recently sold to Malta International Airport) and was (and still is) Chairman of Medigrain, and the Transport Authority (ADT) for a number of years and is still Chairman of Medigrain.
Sapiano also worked closely with the defunct tabloid newspaper The People, which was owned by Charles Demicoli, John Formosa, John Dalli, George Papagiorcopulo and Michael Falzon.
Sapiano opines and is widely supported in his views that Magistrates should have no conflict of interest, but fails to discuss the possible conflicts of interest of many politicians, including himself.
In the last election, standing on the Nationalist ticket, he managed to just get 58 first count votes. He later complained about the spending spree by other Nationalist candidates on their campaigns.
Seven years ago, with no extensive experience, his legal firm was awarded extensive government consultancies totalling Lm25,665 in 2003; Lm47,614 in 2004; Lm51,919 in 2005; and in 2006, Lm30,700.
The government agencies included ADT, where Charles Demicoli was Chairman, the OHSA, Water Services Corporation and Medigrain: where Demicoli is coincidentially still a Chairman today.
In total, Georg Sapiano was awarded Lm156,000 (€363,000) from government contracts alone in just four years.

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