Penalties added in 2021 cannot reach offences from 2019

The Court of Criminal Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction), presided by Mr Justice Neville Camilleri, delivered judgment in Il-Pulizija vs B.J. on 19 February 2026. It dismissed almost every ground of an appeal against convictions for fraud, computer misuse and money laundering, and left the four-year prison term in place. It revoked only the bans on public funding, commercial activity and public office, because the law creating them came into force after the offences.

The facts

In 2019 a company found that payments another company owed it had been sent to bank accounts that were not its own. Police investigations traced one account to the appellant, a former employee who had access to client accounts and to a sheet of passwords.

On 16 October 2025 the Court of Magistrates (Malta), sitting as a court of criminal judicature, found him guilty of fraud, possession of an article for use in fraud, unauthorised computer acts, money laundering and breach of a freezing order and of bail conditions. It acquitted him of theft and of two computer charges.

It sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment, forfeited his bail deposit and personal guarantee, and ordered the confiscation of €13,146.27. Under article 3(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (Chapter 373 of the Laws of Malta), it also imposed a permanent exclusion from public funding, a permanent ban on commercial activity and a five-year ban on elected or public office.

What the court held

The appellant first argued that the judgment was unsafe because its reasoning referred to article 301BA of the Criminal Code (Chapter 9 of the Laws of Malta), which does not exist. The court found that the operative part cited the correct article, 310BA. Reading article 382, it treated the wrong number in the reasoning as a slip of the pen, a lapsus calami, and dismissed the ground.

The second ground was that article 310BA(1) cannot apply because its Maltese text lacks the word “min” (whoever), so the provision names no subject. The court held that the aim of interpretation is the true intention of the legislator. Where one language version is defective, a court may turn to the other.

The English text uses “whosoever”, which removes any doubt about whom the offence targets. The court held that “iż-żewġ verżjonijiet, meqjusa flimkien, iwasslu għal tifsira waħda ċara u koerenti” (the two versions, taken together, lead to one clear and coherent meaning).

On fraud under article 308, the appellant submitted that the company was never induced to do anything, so the staging of deceit, the mise-en-scène, was missing. The court found that the bank details to which the money went were in his name and under his control, as he said himself in his police statement.

It held that the first court could legally and reasonably reach its conclusions. It rejected the challenges to the amount taken and to the computer, laundering, freezing-order and bail convictions.

The last ground concerned punishment. The court would not replace the prison term, which it found neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive. The bans were different: they were added to article 3(1) of Chapter 373 by Act XV of 2021, and the offences took place in 2019.

Article 39(8) of the Constitution of Malta forbids a penalty heavier than the one that could be imposed when the offence was committed. The court also cited article 27 of the Criminal Code, which applies the less severe of the old and new punishments. It revoked the three bans and left the rest of the judgment standing.

Why it matters

Defence lawyers should check the date of every ancillary sanction against the date of the offence, not only the prison term. Arguments built on a gap in the Maltese text of a law will rarely succeed where the English text is clear. A wrong article number in the reasoning does not annul a judgment whose operative part is correct.

Where it sits

The case applies the rule against retroactive criminal law, nulla poena sine lege, set out in article 39(8) of the Constitution. On appeals from the Court of Magistrates, the court applied the settled rule that it does not disturb the first court’s view of the evidence if that view was legal and reasonable, citing the Court of Criminal Appeal (25 November 2022).

On reading the two language versions together, it followed the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction (9 May 2018), which relied on the Court of Appeal (23 May 1947) and the Court of Appeal (6 October 2004). On circumstantial evidence and on the mise-en-scène in fraud, it cited the Court of Criminal Appeal (11 July 2002) and the Court of Criminal Appeal (29 September 2020).

On computer misuse by insiders, it cited the Court of Criminal Appeal (26 September 2023). On appeals against punishment, it cited the Court of Criminal Appeal (20 December 2022) and the Court of Criminal Appeal in its superior jurisdiction (25 August 2005). On the less severe penalty, it cited the Court of Criminal Appeal (17 November 2003).

Source

Court of Criminal Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction), 19 February 2026, 478/2019/1