Yorgen Fenech won’t get any type of court remedy after filing a case against lawyer and MP Jason Azzopardi for comments he made during a radio interview.

Fenech, who has been charged with conspiring to assassinate journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, had filed a case against Azzopardi, the lawyer of the Caruana Galizias, for implying his guilt in the murder on a 103FM interview.

He invoked a clause in the Criminal Code which states that public authorities shouldn’t refer to accused people as guilty while the case against them is still ongoing. As per the law, suspects who have this right breached have ten days to request a remedy from the Court of Magistrates.

Fenech’s lawyers pointed out that Azzopardi is also an MP and [at the time] shadow justice minister, constituting a “clear conflict of interest”, and that the situation risks prejudicing the minds of jurors who would eventually judge Fenech.

However, magistrate Rachel Montebello dismissed Fenech’s request for a remedy, arguing that an MP cannot be considered a public authority unless they are also appointed to an official role, such as minister or parliamentary secretary.

As for Azzopardi’s interview on 103FM, Montebello said that while it was clear he was implying guilt on Fenech’s part, he had every right to do that in his role as lawyer of the Caruana Galizia family.

“The position of the parte civile and its lawyers isn’t impartial and they cannot be stopped from expressing their beliefs that the accused is guilty,” she said. “It’s obvious that they’re in a position that cannot respect the presumption of innocence.”

“The principle of presumption of innocence to be applied by judges, courts and public authorities cannot be applied absolutely to the prosecution, which prepares charges to pave the way for the criminal process, so long as the prosecutor doesn’t have a quasi-judicial function or absolute control of the criminal procedures.”

However, the magistrate urged Azzopardi to exercise more caution when speaking in public about the case, arguing that his position as an MP means his words carry a certain degree of weight, at least among his constituents.

“The court believes he should have exercised more caution in his choice of words to describe his opinion about Fenech’s guilt and when making public statements that can be interpreted by Fenech as him being guilty of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, when he hasn’t yet been found guilty of this crime.”