Three judges shortlisted for Malta’s next Chief Justice

Three sitting judges are being considered as frontrunners to succeed Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti when he steps down in February upon reaching the statutory retirement age of 68, The Shift is informed.

According to sources familiar with the process, the government has drawn up a shortlist of three names to be discussed with the Opposition ahead of the appointment.

The contenders are Judge Edwina Grima, President of the Criminal Court; Judge Anthony Ellul, a member of the Court of Appeal; and Judge Henri Mizzi, a former commercial lawyer who joined the bench in 2023 following a long tenure as partner at Camilleri Preziosi.

For the first time, Malta’s Chief Justice will be appointed through a parliamentary resolution requiring the support of two-thirds of MPs – a reform introduced in 2020 to strengthen judicial independence. The new mechanism will oblige the government to secure cross-party consensus for Chetcuti’s successor.

Legal circles view Judge Grima, 56, as the leading candidate. Appointed magistrate in 2007 under a Nationalist administration and elevated to the Bench in 2014 by the Labour government, she is regarded as a “no-nonsense” jurist respected for her decisiveness and legal rigour.

Judge Ellul, 59, also commands considerable respect within the judiciary. A former lawyer at the Attorney General’s office, he became a magistrate in 2007 and a judge in 2011, both appointments made under the Nationalist Party. He is currently one of the most senior judges on the Bench after Chetcuti and Judge Giannino Caruana Demajo, who is also due to retire early next year.

The third contender, Judge Mizzi, 60, is considered an outsider. The son of former Attorney General Edgar Mizzi, who served during Dom Mintoff’s premiership, he is known for his strict courtroom management and his prior work advising major corporate clients. His perceived aloofness and limited popularity among colleagues, along with doubts about his potential to attract Opposition backing, are seen as obstacles to his candidacy.

No decision has yet been made, though Prime Minister Robert Abela and Opposition Leader Alex Borg are understood to have held preliminary discussions on the process.

Chetcuti was appointed Chief Justice in April 2020 with unanimous parliamentary approval, despite only a simple majority being required at the time.

Amendments to Malta’s Constitution later that year introduced the two-thirds requirement – a reform reflecting recommendations from the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission aimed at bolstering judicial impartiality and independence.