Gibraltar Corruption

Is there still Rule of Law in Gibraltar? Is there corruption in the local police?

Are employees' Human Rights protected? Is there a mafia in Gibraltar?

How corrupt are the Courts in Gibraltar? Is Entain a bad employer?

The Disciplinary Committee and its big carpet.

During the final hearing on Liability in the Employment Tribunal, I had been pushed very hard by Entain's lawyer, Mr Darren Martinez of the Hassans law firm. Several unsavoury things happened which were clearly against the rules, some of them could even have been criminal offences. Tribunal Chairman Nuñez let it all happen and never attempted to stop Mr Martinez's over the top approach. I therefore filed several well documented complaints about Mr Martinez's conduct with the Disciplinary Committee. My complaints were completely brushed under the carpet without even the most minimal investigation.

On 11th January 2021 I filed my first complaints about Mr Martinez's way of dealing with my proceedings. The complaints were in general about the overly aggressive way of dealing with my claims and a war of attrition strategy where my mental health illness was weaponised against me to try to break me mentally and financially and force me to give up in the Tribunal and Supreme Court. I believed, and continue to believe, that the harsh approach could include fraud, intimidation, threats, coercion, blackmail, hiding of evidence, contempt for the Courts, abuse of process, collateral use of disclosed documents, corruption of an Employment Tribunal Chairman and perverting the course of Justice. I added five files with submissions, each with their own bundle of evidence. The files were:
1/ Abuse of process to delay and stall proceedings.
2/ Hiding of evidence to pervert the course of Justice.
3/ Fraud, threats, intimidation and coercion.
4/ Collateral use of disclosed documents and blackmail.
5/ Corruption of an Employment Tribunal Chairman.

A week later, on 18th January 2021, I added a further complaint about further gratuitous threats, intimidation and misleading of the Tribunal. I saw two categories of improper and/or abusive litigation by Mr Martinez: 1/ The duty to the Court, third parties and to the public interest was breached in the name of another interest, that of his client wishing to defend a case without any prospect of success. 2/ The duty to his client was breached in the interests of another party, the solicitor himself.

Shortly after, on 9th February 2021, I filed again an additional complaint about the continuation of Mr Martinez's improper attitude.

Three days later, on 12th February 2021, I again added an additional complaint about the continuation of the improper attitude.

Unfortunately my complaints were not dealt with by the Admissions & Disciplinary Committee at the time. A proper investigation of my complaints might have led to a change of approach by Mr Martinez and make the proceedings less aggressive and attrition war-like. Instead Mr Martinez continued as if no complaints had been filed, it actually even got worse.

The formal contact of the Admissions & Disciplinary Committee continued to be the Registrar of the Supreme Court. A newly set up Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) existed, but only in name. Only about two years later would it get its full powers. This was confirmed in an email on 21st April 2021; “I write further to your email of 20th April addressed to the Registrar. The LSRA’s role is to assist administratively in the handling of complaints since it has not yet acquired its disciplinary functions.” and was sent by Mr Albert Yome, Assistant to the Chief Executive. At no point had I given permission for my sensitive and confidential data to be passed to an external organisation. Even worse was that this Mr Yome was known to me as he had in the past aggressively approached me and threatened me because he disliked that I had criticised the local Minister for the Environment. He had an axe to grind and I formally complained about his involvement. But the very worst was that Mr Yome wrote on behalf of the LSRA's CEO, which was Mr David Dumas, who had previously represented GVC/Entain and had passed on my case to Mr Martinez. It was Mr Dumas who had started the hard and brutal approach towards my person and my claims. A war of attrition strategy which was continued by Mr Martinez. Mr Dumas had, in other words, a huge conflict of interest. Mr Dumas' personal assistant, while working at Hassans, was Ms Rose Cornelio. Mr Dumas and Ms Cornelio were involved in a few written exchanges around 31st July - 14th August 2019. In those exchanges I complained to the Chairman that Mr Dumas' approach was aimed at pushing me to commit suicide. I was in those days being treated by two medical professionals for my depression, anxiety and the alcohol abuse that this brought with them. Both of them were heavily alarmed by what I told them during counselling sessions about Mr Dumas' brutal and aggressive behaviour and advised me to write to the Chairman to inform him that Mr Dumas' approach was detrimental for my mental health and could be aimed at making me commit suicide. This was their medical opinion, of both of them, and I followed their advice. Mr Dumas made a big effort to have my complaints to the Tribunal removed from the record, but the then Chairman, Kenneth Navas, did not order so. Shortly after, on 3rd October 2019, the local press announced that Mr Dumas had been appointed as the first chief executive of the LSRA. That Mr Dumas was appointed to uphold the legal standards of all lawyers in Gibraltar is quite surprising, seen his history in my proceedings, where he weaponised my mental illness against me in his war of attrition strategy. As the LSRA was only to receive its powers at the end of 2022, it was not to be expected that he would become involved in dealing with my complaints against Mr Martinez. I was completely mistaken in that.

On 21st June 2021, I filed a further complaint with the Admissions & Disciplinary Committee. During the ten day final hearing on liability in the Employment Tribunal, Mr Martinez as usual resorted to intimidation techniques, for instance by threatening to sue me for defamation. Mr Martinez's total respect for my personal situation as a vulnerable person with mental health illness, became abundantly clear again with his harsh cross-examination of me which lasted for eighteen hours over four days. I repeatedly protested to the Tribunal Chairman against the inordinately hard and long cross-examination, referring to my mental health illness. At one point the hearing had to be adjourned by the Chairman as I got very close to a panic attack which would have made me end up in the hospital's A&E. There was never any need for such an extended cross-examination of me as I had written a very detailed witness statement of 206 pages. Those eighteen hours of brutal cross-examination caused me significant further mental health damage which continues to date. The way the cross-examination was done was torture. Throughout the final hearing, a lot of written and easily retrievable evidence was still missing and I repeatedly had to point out that (parts of) email threads and minutes of meetings had not been disclosed. Some of the most significant evidence was disclosed on the evening of the ninth day of the ten day hearing, when I was completely exhausted. This continuous hiding of evidence, of which there can be very little doubt that it was intentional, was detrimental for pleading my case.

Again I did not hear back from the Admissions & Disciplinary Committee. In those days I was not worried about the lack of news as I wrongly assumed that this matter would be dealt with at the end of the legal proceedings in which Mr Martinez represented my ex-employer. Unfortunately, Mr Martinez continued as if I had never filed any complaints and there was no improvement in the way he dealt with the proceedings, his war of attrition continued. With hindsight, the likelihood that Mr Martinez and his predecessor Mr Dumas, discussed my case on at least a few occasions, seems to be very high. Mr Martinez behaved as if he had been given assurances that my complaints would lead to nothing. I have no evidence for this assumption but it makes sense that if Mr Dumas was protecting Mr Martinez, he was de facto also protecting himself from my complaints made against him. What the Chief Minister's role might have been, a Hassans partner on a sabbatical, is unclear. The fact is that the Chief Minister was aware of my employment claims, as this was brought up by me in an hour long meeting I had with him during a meeting about my application for British citizenship. My case might be a huge loss for Hassans as it is about career damages, their mistakes might cause a refusal of GVC to pay me and lead to a legal battle against Hassans.

On 31st March 2023 I sent an email to the LSRA informing them that the day before I read in a judgement for my case that my complaints against Mr Martinez were dismissed. I never was informed about this although Mr Martinez said in Court that he had seen a copy of a letter to me mentioning the dismissal of my complaints. I then contacted the Registrar of the Supreme Court via email to get an update. The Registrar had informed me at the filing of my complaint that I would be invited to a hearing to clarify my points. I never received such an invitation and neither did I attend any Admissions & Disciplinary Committee or LSRA hearings about my complaint against Mr Martinez.

On 4th April 2023 I received three emails from the LSRA re my 31st March 2023 email to them:
- 15:39 An email from Ms Rose Cornelio as reply to my 31st March 2023 email.
- 15:54 An attempt by Ms Rose Cornelio to recall the email she sent earlier. This attempt failed as I had already moved the original email to a different mail folder.
- 15:57 The original email is resent but now from a nameless LSRA email address in an apparent attempt to hide Ms Rose Cornelio's involvement.

The email contained three attachments;
- an email claimed to have been sent to me on 13th December 2021.
- 21 12 09 Decision.pdf
- 21 12 13 Letter A&DC - Mr Van Thienen.pdf

1. Email attached:
Complaint by Mr Bart Van Thienen dated 11 January 2021 against Mr Darren Martinez
Dear Van Thienen
Kindly find attached a letter and attachment for your attention. The original will be sent to you by post.
Yours sincerely
Rose Cornelio
Secretary
Admissions & Disciplinary Committee

In this attached email no date can be seen proving when it was sent. Allegedly this email was sent on 13th December 2021. Although this email is claimed to be from the Admissions & Disciplinary Committee, the email address is from the LSRA. I have never given permission to pass my data to the LSRA, that this clearly happened was a breach of Data Protection Rules and Regulations. The email does not mention my right to appeal the decision or how to do an appeal.

2. Attachment: "21 12 13 Letter A&DC - Mr Van Thienen.pdf"
The document informs me that my complaints against Mr Martinez have been completely dismissed. It does not mention my right to appeal the decision or how to do an appeal.

3. Attachment: "21 12 09 Decision.pdf"
The document claims that there is no evidence supporting my complaints about Mr Martinez. Therefore my complaints are completely dismissed. The document does not mention my right to appeal the decision or how to do an appeal. The panel, allegedly the Admissions & Disciplinary Committee consisted of three people;
- Sir Peter Caruana KCMG, QC – Chairman
- Mr Guy Stagnetto QC (TSN)
- Mrs Emma Lejeune (Isolas)

The panel Chairman Sir Peter Caruana KCMG, QC is as well the Chairman of the LSRA. He recently created an uproar with his Human Rights breaches in the Ian McGrail inquiry, he threatened lawyers and witnesses with suing them for defamation in an attempt to influence those witnesses, trying to make the proceedings unfair. This is identical to what Mr Martinez did to me; he threatened to sue me for defamation. This was mentioned in my complaints about Mr Martinez. Mr Caruana has repeatedly represented the Government in Court or elsewhere. The same Government which I accuse of not providing an Employment Tribunal which is fit for purpose. Mr Caruana clearly has a conflict of interest making him unsuitable for any involvement in the investigation of my complaints. The fact that he breaches Mr McGrail's Human Rights, makes that he has completely lost all moral authority to be the LSRA Chairman.

Mr Guy Stagnetto QC (TSN) was appointed in December 2019 as a member of the LSRA. His expertise is in the field of construction law in Gibraltar. He has advised the Government, private developers and bankers on most of Gibraltar’s main developments over the last 20+ years. This creates a conflict of interest as Mr Martinez was appointed as a member of the Development Appeals Tribunal by the Chief Minister of Gibraltar. This Development Appeals Tribunal is the appeal body tasked with determining appeals of decisions of the Development and Planning Commission. It is clearly in Mr Stagnetto's interest to be on Mr Martinez's good side to help sway decisions in the Development Appeals Tribunal to his desired outcome.

Mrs Emma Lejeune (Isolas) is a member of the Board of the LSRA. All lawyers from Isolas whom I had contacted to ask to represent me refused to do so claiming a conflict of interest. The conflict of interest is that Mr Peter Isola, Senior Partner of Isolas, joined the Respondent's governing body in February 2016. During his six-year tenure (ending 22nd Mar 2022) as a Non-Executive Director, he helped guide my ex-employer through various business developments, serving on the company’s Audit, Remuneration and ESG Committees. The ESG Committee deals with bullying and health and safety matters. Mrs Lejeune clearly had a conflict of interest and should not have been involved in investigating complaints about Mr Martinez.

It is shocking that all three members of the panel going over my well documented complaints, accompanied by ample evidence, were LSRA members. The LSRA only existed in name at that time. The Legal Services Act 2017 only came fully into force on 30th December 2022. The contemporary Barristers and Solicitors Rules Part 3 stated:
3.(1) There shall be established for the purposes of these rules a committee, to be known as the Admissions and Disciplinary Committee.
(2) The committee shall consist of three members, as follows :–
(a) the Attorney-General who shall be chairman of the committee; and,
(b) two unofficial members to be appointed by the Chief Justice, one of whom shall be nominated by the Bar of Gibraltar.

It is a fact that I have never been heard by this LSRA committee. Although their decision mentions my “legally misconceived characterization”, apparently suggesting that as a litigant-in-person I did not know what I was doing, this alone should have been a reason for them to invite me to address them to clarify my relevant points. The Panel claims that there was “no evidence whatsoever”, which can only be seen as a euphemism that they have not even looked at the abundant evidence for my complaints. The decision document also fails to point out my right of appeal and how to do such an appeal. The Panel's Document refers to their meeting on 21st October 2021 to consider my complaints. Their decision document is signed on 9th December 2021, a month and a half after their meeting. On exactly the same date, 9th December 2021, Employment Tribunal Chairman Joseph Nuñez published his completely wrong judgement for my case, it took me a 133-page skeleton argument to expose all the mistakes in this judgement. That the LSRA document and Nuñez's judgement were published on the exact same day, shows that there has been communication and coordination behind my back between the LSRA and Tribunal Chairman.

Mr Dumas had a power over Chairman Nuñez because of his position as CEO in the LSRA. The posibility that something fishy happened is clearly very much possible.

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