CHAPTER IV
Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Individual
39. Provisions to secure protection of law.
(5) Every person who is charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed to be innocent until he is proved or has pleaded guilty:
Provided that nothing contained in or done under the authority of any law shall be held to be inconsistent with or in contravention of this sub-article to the extent that the law in question imposes upon any person charged as aforesaid the burden of proving particular facts.
(6) Every person who is charged with a criminal offence -
(a) shall be informed in writing, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature of the offence charged;
(b) shall be given adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence;
(c) shall be permitted to defend himself in person or by a legal representative and a person who cannot afford to pay for such legal representation as is reasonably required by the circumstances of his case shall be entitled to have such representation at the public expense;
(d) shall be afforded facilities to examine in person or by his legal representative the witnesses called by the prosecution before any court and to obtain the attendance of witnesses subject to the payment of their reasonable expenses, and carry out the examination of witnesses to testify on his behalf before the court on the same conditions as those applying to witnesses called by the prosecution; and
(e) shall be permitted to have without payment the assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand the language used at the trial of the charge,
and except with his own consent the trial shall not take place in his absence unless he so conducts himself as to render the continuance of the proceedings in his presence impracticable and the court has ordered him to be removed and the trial to proceed in his absence.
(7) When a person is tried for any criminal offence, the accused person or any person authorised by him in that behalf shall, if he so requires and subject to payment of such reasonable fee as may be prescribed by law, be given within a reasonable time after judgment a copy for the use of the accused person of any record of the proceedings made by or on behalf of the court.
(8) No person shall be held to be guilty of a criminal offence on account of any act or omission that did not, at the time it took place, constitute such an offence, and no penalty shall be imposed for any criminal offence which is severer in degree or description than the maximum penalty which might have been imposed for that offence at the time when it was committed.
(9) No person who shows that he has been tried by any competent court for a criminal offence and either convicted or acquitted shall again be tried for that offence or for any other criminal offence of which he could have been convicted at the trial for that offence save upon the order of a superior court made in the course of appeal or review proceedings relating to the conviction or acquittal; and no person shall be tried for a criminal offence if he shows that he has been pardoned for that offence:
Provided that nothing in any law shall be held to be inconsistent with or in contravention of this sub-article by reason only that it authorises any court to try a member of a disciplined force for a criminal offence notwithstanding any trial and conviction or acquittal of that member under the disciplinary law of that force, so however that any court so trying such a member and convicting him shall in sentencing him to any punishment take into account any punishment awarded him under that disciplinary law.
(10) No person who is tried for a criminal offence shall be compelled to give evidence at his trial.
(11) In this article "legal representative" means a person entitled to practise in Malta as an advocate or, except in relation to proceedings before a court where a legal procurator has no right of audience, a legal procurator.
EDIT.