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State Advocate Bypassed In Decision To Appeal Court Order For Yorgen Fenech To Be Granted Access To Keith Schembri’s Phone Data 

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State Advocate Chris Soler has insisted that a decision to appeal a judgment by the Constitutional Court, ordering the police to hand over data extracted from Keith Schembri’s phone to Yorgen Fenech’s defence team, was not taken by himself. 

Last week, Soler was found guilty of contempt of court and fined €500 by judge Lawrence Mintoff after an appeal was filed by the State Advocate’s office, to a decision he handed down ordering the data to be handed over to Fenech’s lawyers. 

The data, they claim, includes information that is essential to their case, in which they are asking the court to order the removal of Superintendent Keith Arnaud from the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination case. 

The request has been resisted by the police and the State Advocate’s office, who argue that this could compromise ongoing investigations. Despite this, Soler had informed the court that it would be abiding by its decision and would not be filing an appeal. 

But when the parties appeared in court last week for what was to be a procedural sitting, the judge was informed that an appeal had been filed. 

Fenech’s lawyers argued that this meant that there was either already the intention for the decision to be appealed when Soler made his declaration, or that something had happened after that declaration that had caused him to change his mind. 

Soler has now filed an appeal against the judge’s decision against him, in which he argues that he was unfairly treated and not given the opportunity to provide an explanation. 

In his appeal, he stresses that he hadn’t drafted or signed the appeal and that this was done by a lawyer within his office. 

In fact, he said that he had been “ultra-careful” to act ethically and not to be professionally inconsistent by not signing the appeal unless it was “strictly necessary”. 

It would appear that rather than convince Soler the appeal was “strictly necessary” the police got another lawyer from the State Advocate’s office to sign the appeal. Soler also pointed out that he could not have informed the court about the appeal given that he himself was not aware of it. If anything, he said, the court should have requested an explanation from the court registrar.

Soler added that a lawyer representing a client – in this case, the police commissioner – in a case could by no means be considered to be in contempt of court simply for executing their client’s wishes.  

Soler insisted that he had always shown the utmost respect towards the court, clarifying that he had never renounced his right to file an appeal, and therefore, legally speaking, the decision to find him in contempt of court was legally tenuous. 

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Yannick joined Lovin Malta in March 2021 having started out in journalism in 2016. He is passionate about politics and the way our society is governed, and anything to do with numbers and graphs. He likes dogs more than he does people.

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