User:Dans/sandbox5

Mark A. Sammut Sassi (Malta, 1973), formerly Sammut, is a Maltese notary, writer and translator.

Biography
The eldest son of Maltese writer Frans Sammut, Mark A. Sammut graduating in law and translation at the University of Malta. He also obtained master's degrees in Western European legal history at the University of London, and in historical sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Sammut served as local councillor in Zebbug (1993–1996), member of the Cooperative Societies board (1997–98), Secretary of the Notarial Council of Malta (2000–2003), Honorary Consul of Latvia in Malta (2001–2006), and President of the Maltese Language Association - University / Ghaqda tal-Malti Università (2007–2009).

Sammut was politically active since the early 1990s, from 1996 onward within the ranks of Malta's Labour Party. He was a Labour candidate in the 1996 and 1998 elections, without being elected. He played a prominent role in the electoral campaign for the 2003 elections, when he acted as notary for Alfred Sant's "people's pact", which Malta Today journalist Saviour Balzan considered inspired by Silvio Berlusconi's 2001 patto con gli italiani.

As a translator, in 1999 Sammut translated Machiavelli's The Prince into Maltese. His translation of Ġużè Bonnici's La Pazza was praised by Charles Briffa.

In April 2005 Sammut was stopped at Malta's airport, about to board a flight to London, while carrying a loaded gun. Sammut, who did not hold a license, claimed to have been carrying a gun for 18 months after having received threats. After having been acquitted in first degree, in 2010 Sammut was handed a suspended two-month jail sentence and a 104€ fine by the Appeals Court on appeal of the Attorney-General.

From 2014 to 2016, Sammut lectured at the University of Malta on the history of the Maltese Criminal Code. He also published an academic article on the Place of the Codice Municipale di Malta in European Legal History.

While working as a translator for the European Parliament in Luxembourg in the 2010s, Mark A. Sammut faced an administrative enquiry "for allegedly threatening, slandering and intimidating his head of unit Joseph Caruana. He has made identical counter-accusations," as reported by Malta Today.

Sammut left the Labour Party in 2016, and joined the centre-right Partit Nazzjonalista.

In November 2016, Sammut published the book ''L-Aqwa fl-Ewropa. Il-Panama Papers u l-Poter'', highly critical of Labour Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's policies and defence of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. Sammut sued the European Parliament after being disciplined for not having informed the European Parliament "of his intention to publish a book", but the European Court of Justice dismissed his case in June 2020.

Sammut has since written two additional essays of political commentary: ''L-Aqwa Żmien Għalihom. Erba' Snin ta' Skandli ("The Best of Times for Them. Four Scandal-Ridden Years", Malta, 2017), and Flying at the Fall of Dusk: Commentaries on Malta in the Muscat Years'' (Malta, 2021) , the latter of which gathers his Sunday columns in The Malta Independent from 2018 till 2020.

As reported by Malta Today, in 2017 Sammut was the sole shareholder and director of Gibraltar-based company Whitelocke Publications, which published his own Essays on Maltese Legal History and Comparative Law. The same year professor Raymond Mangion sued Mark A. Sammut and Whitelocke Publications for distributing his book on Malta's legal system without his consent. Sammut also used to own 50% shares of Russell Square Publishing, with which he also published a book on Maltese Legal History in 2016.

In 2020 Sammut argued, on the basis of La Ciotat's civil registry records, that Mikiel Anton Vassalli had never been married.

Sammut is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies (SALS), and a member of the European Society for Comparative Legal History, the Malta Historical Society, the Società italiana di storia del diritto, and the European Society for History of Law. He is also an arbitrator at the Malta Arbitration Centre.

Mark A. Sammut Sassi is married, and has a daughter.

Publications

 * A Short History of Latvia/L-Istorja tal-Latvja fil-Qosor (Malta, 2004)
 * Il-Liġi, il-Morali, u r-Raġuni (Law, Morality and Reason) with Giuseppe Mifsud Bonnici (Malta, 2008)
 * The Law of Consular Relations (XPL, UK, 2010)
 * (Editor and co-author) Malta at the European Court of Human Rights 1987-2012, with Patrick Cuignet and David A. Borg. (Malta, 2012)
 * L-Aqwa fl-Ewropa. Il-Panama Papers u l-Poter [The Best in Europe: The Panama Papers and Power] (Malta, 2016)
 * The Law in All Its Majesty: Essays in Maltese Legal History and Comparative Law. (Russell Square Publishing, London 2016), ISBN 978-1-911301004.
 * Essays on Maltese Legal History and Comparative Law (Whitelocke Publishing, Oxford, 2017)
 * L-Aqwa Żmien Għalihom. Erba' Snin ta' Skandli [The Best of Times for Them. Four Scandal-Ridden Years] (Malta, 2017)
 * ''Flying at the Fall of Dusk: Commentaries on Malta in the Muscat Years" (Malta, 2021)