His father, Vincenzo Bonello, was the curator of the national art collection in the interwar period, and among the Maltese patriots, like Enrico Mizzi, who were deported and interned in Uganda by the British colonial administration during World War II.

[3] Giovanni Bonello studied law and practiced for the first decades of his professional career, specializing in constitutional and human rights litigation in newly-independent Malta.

[4] Bonello was, among others, the legal counsel of the Little Company of Mary in the saga that opposed the Irish nuns to Dom Mintoff's government, which finally closed down their Blue Sisters Hospital.

[5] Bonello was also the author of "Page 13", the most widely read (and anonymous) political news column of The Sunday Times of Malta in the 1970s and 1980s, dedicated to human rights issues during the Labour government of Dom Mintoff - "But I have never actually confirmed or denied the rumour myself", as he stated in 2008.

[3] It was then the new Labour government led by Alfred Sant, in 1998, to appoint Bonello as Maltese judge at the European Court of Human Rights, from 1 November 1998 until 31 October 2004.

[3][7] As the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe rejected the all-male list of candidates proposed by the Maltese Government to succeed him, Bonello's term was extended twice until 19 September 2010.

Only an obscure and overlooked tombstone in the Carmelite church in Valletta today bears witness to her existence, her feminist vision and her generous, farsighted altruism.