In cases which cannot lead to life imprisonment, the accused can choose to be judged by a judge on his own.
Dr Franco Debono
Maltese law lets an accused choose to be tried by a judge without a jury, as long as the prosecution is not seeking life imprisonment. Drug offences go further: an accused can choose a judge alone even where life imprisonment is demanded.How we reached this verdict ↓
Analysis and evaluation
Dr Debono's statement matches the Criminal Code. A trial without a jury is already possible in Malta, and it is the accused who decides.
How the judge-alone trial works
Article 436(6) of the Criminal Code allows the accused to file a note in the court registry opting that no jury be empanelled. The note must be filed within ten days of being served with notice of the trial date. The case is then heard by one judge sitting without a jury (article 436(9)).
The option is not available where the punishment demanded in the indictment is life imprisonment. Offences under the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance and the Medical and Kindred Professions Ordinance are exempt from that bar, so an accused in a drug case can choose a judge alone even when facing a demand for life. The latest amendment to article 436 was made by Act VII of 2025.
There are two further conditions. The option is closed to an accused who has made a particular objection under article 370(3)(d) (article 436(7)). Where several accused are indicted together and not all of them opt out, the one who does is tried after the jury case against the others has been finally decided (article 436(8)).
A different model from the ones Sammut described
Debono was replying to Dr Austin Sammut, who described two other ways of trying serious cases. One is judges and lay jurors deciding together, which Sammut said is used in France, Italy and Japan. The other is a panel of three judges for cases such as terrorism. The judge-alone trial is a separate arrangement: one judge, chosen by the accused. The Criminal Code sets the trial court as one judge, with a jury (article 436(1)) or without one (article 436(9)), and a jury of nine (article 610(1)). Malta's only three-judge criminal court is the Court of Criminal Appeal, made up of the Chief Justice and two other judges (article 498(2)), which hears appeals.
Evaluation
What Debono said is correct. Accused persons who are not facing a demand for life imprisonment can choose to be tried by a judge without a jury, and in drug cases they can do so even where life is demanded. His phrase "cases which cannot lead to life imprisonment" is a fair plain-language version of the legal test, which looks at the punishment demanded in the indictment.
The judge-alone trial and the models Sammut raised sit side by side as different approaches. One is a choice given to the accused. The others are ways of composing the court itself.
Editorial note
How we assessed this claim
We compared Debono's statement with the Criminal Code (Cap. 9), in the consolidated text on legislation.mt as amended up to Act XVII of 2026. We checked who can choose a judge-alone trial, when, and in which cases.
The statement matches the law, so nothing below True fits. The one detail Debono left out, the exception for drug offences, makes the option wider than he described, not narrower, so it does not weaken his point.
Limitations
- The foreign systems mentioned in the discussion are attributed to Dr Sammut and were not verified for this piece.
- The legal text credits the latest amendment to article 436 to Act VII of 2025. We have not confirmed when that amendment took effect.
- No published figures show how often accused persons choose a judge alone.