02/11/2026
❗Malta’s jury system serves murderers better than justice for their victims❗
The acquittal of Lorin Scicluna in a jury trial for Lassana Cisse’s murder has shown, once again, that the justice system is rubber-stamping murder.
Scicluna’s lawyers secured a 30-year plea deal before he was acquitted. No one needs a plea deal if they are innocent, just as no one asks for a pardon if they are not guilty – as Yorgen Fenech did five times for the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
The 8-1 jury vote acquitting Scicluna echoes the jurors’ vote to acquit Yorgen Fenech on 2nd September, failing to deliver justice for Daphne despite Fenech’s self-incriminating statement to the police and testimony in his trial for murder.
Malta’s jury system is no longer fit to ensure that justice is served. It is a system where perpetrators can get away with murder and have their crime legitimised by an acquittal.
The jury system has not been significantly reformed since it was set up nearly 200 years ago. It is vulnerable to abuse that is now normalised by the persons exploiting its weaknesses.
Jurors present their verdicts without providing a rationale, declaring the accused guilty or not guilty without explaining either their legal or their factual reasoning. This undermines transparency, leaves both the prosecution and the defence without clarity, and severely limits the possibility of filing effective appeals.
Moreover, jurors are inherently susceptible to public campaigns, psychological distress, media coverage, prejudice and bias, and intimidation and influence. All of these factors jeopardise the guarantee of an impartial trial. Jurors do not typically have specialised knowledge and training, unlike members of the judiciary who are familiar with the law and trained to discern the facts before them impartially.
As in Yorgen Fenech’s trial the jurors’ questions showed they did not understand the basic legal concept of complicity in murder. The jurors ignored what matters, which is that two people went out armed with a gun with the intention to kill black people, and that that made them both complicit in murder.
Malta’s choice is stark: immediate and drastic reform to ensure justice is delivered swiftly and effectively, or continue to allow killers to get away with murder.
