Four Cardinal Rights of a suspect prior to an investigation

This is the ideal book for the legal practitioner, the academic or the journalist. With a wealth of new material dealing with the rights of the accused person during the pre-trial stage and with mounting pressures to have justice administered within a reasonable time, it is becoming impossible to spend many hours, days or weeks carrying out research about the different aspects of the four cardinal rights of the accused within a short time.

This book provides lucid answers and the right points of departure for any person preparing himself for any case which falls within the area of these rights.

The author successfully deals with the relevant EU Directives, the changes in Maltese Law, judgements or decisions by the European Court of Human Rights and by the Court of Justice of the European Union, judgements delivered by the Maltese Courts and judgements by courts in several Commonwealth countries.

The references to scholarly articles are invaluable. Moreover, the material is easily accessible as the chapters deal with specific problems connected with the rights in question and so one can trace the information required for a particular case without any
loss of time. However, the book is also a very good read for the layman who may have heard about the questions raised in the daily newspapers and is curious about a more technical approach to the problems, that is, solutions which are based on sound reason rather than on emotion.

In addition, the book may attract the attention of foreign academics who are carrying out research in the same area and that of the local or foreign student who is preparing for criminal law or constitutional law examinations.

Judge Lawrence Quintano