What do courts and theatres have in common? In both of those places, it’s easy to find not just people, but characters. Not just lawyers or actors, but individuals serving a role
Legal theatrics
We need your support!
Reporting about this case has become a full-time job for us on certain days. We are not getting paid for delivering this public service, but greatly appreciate your donation to NEWZ.mt using our Revolut payment page.
Please leave a reference to ‘Court Blog’, so we’re able to allocate the amount received to this project.
What do courts and theatres have in common? In both of those places, it’s easy to find not just people, but characters. Not just lawyers or actors, but individuals serving a role.
Above all, in both places, you may find one thing for sure – people who want to sell an illusion.
In today’s hearing of the case of the state v disgraced former health minister Chris Fearne and the other accused, today brought more legal theatre from the defence, an extension of what we saw in yesterday’s case.
After five hours on the witness stand in front of magistrate Rachel Montebello yesterday, court expert Sam Sittlington was asked to testify again in front of magistrate Leonard Caruana.
Exactly like disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat and his lawyers did yesterday, today we saw the defence team representing Fearne and the other accused undermining Sittlington’s credibility. The illusion that is up for sale here is this – everyone’s a liar except for Joseph Muscat and his friends.
Not only did we hear plenty of repetition of the same insinuations we heard in yesterday’s case, Sittlington – who was one of the experts who assisted with the hospitals inquiry – was now also accused of intimidating the defence.
He was accused of doing so for having the audacity to signal to the court that he was very uncomfortable with how the defence keeps confronting him with information that is supposed to be sensitive.
Absolutely nobody has taken any responsibility for the scandalous fact that an internal discussion that occurred between a court expert, the police commissioner, and a former deputy commissioner has now been weaponised against the same expert.
In fact, magistrate Caruana felt the need to intervene and make it clear that questions which amount to entrapment – when someone puts insidious words in your mouth with the purpose of undermining you – are not admissible in court.
Not one newspaper picked up on the significance of all this, and as far as we could see today, no comment has been issued from police commissioner Angelo Gafa’ or home affairs minister Byron Camilleri.
We sent questions to the police corps to demand a response about this absurd and surreal abuse.
Read today’s Live Blog
Next Live Blog: Thursday, 3 October, 09:30
