TMID Editorial: Attacking the judiciary

The Prime Minister’s attack on a member of the judiciary over the past weeks is both wrong and dangerous for justice.The news that the Vitals magisterial inquiry came to an end emerged in court last week, as did the news that the inquiry had be

By: independent.com.mt

May 07 2024
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TMID Editorial: Attacking the

The Prime Minister’s attack on a member of the judiciary over the past weeks is both wrong and dangerous for justice.

The news that the Vitals magisterial inquiry came to an end emerged in court last week, as did the news that the inquiry had been passed on to the Attorney General. The Prime Minister was quick to attack the timing of the inquiry conclusion.

He played a dangerous game, one that can hinder justice and can cast doubt on the judiciary as a whole.

When the Prime Minister makes statements that try to damage the credibility of the Magistrate who conducted that inquiry, through the insinuations and statements he had made regarding the timing of the inquiry’s conclusion, it is worrying.

Just yesterday, a total of 22 student organisations based at the University of Malta issued a shared statement to show support towards the judiciary and to condemn the recent attacks against its members by “the highest government officials.”

The news also emerged yesterday that charges have been filed in court by the Attorney General, and we now wait for the sittings to commence.

But could the Prime Minister’s statements, swinging so hard at the magistrate through his insinuations, impact those whose job it is to investigate or prosecute?

Could the Prime Minister’s attack on a member of the judiciary impact any judges or magistrates who would have to hear the cases tied to this investigation? Could they have an impact on a possible jury later down the line? Could his statements impact prosecutors in the cases to come?

The Prime Minister’s statements are politicising a criminal investigation. The Prime Minister’s focus on the timing rather than on the fact that such a major inquiry had concluded is strange.

There had been rumours swirling that the inquiry was close to completion for months. But a magistrate doesn’t just have a single inquiry to oversee. The magistrate accused by Prime Minister Robert Abela of having taken too long to complete the Vitals inquiry has another 94 inquiries in her inbox, the Times of Malta quotes court statistics as showing, and that is in addition to court cases the magistrate has. The news report also read that “her workload is not unique among her colleagues: most magistrates have dozens of pending magisterial inquiries and court cases that they have yet to be concluded. In some cases, those numbers run into three figures.”

The Times of Malta also reported that a “fact-check earlier this year concluded that practically every inquiry takes longer than that to be concluded, and one in five take longer than four years to complete. Some ongoing inquiries date back to the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Legal sources said that most of the delays are caused by the limited pool of court experts who take longer than expected to complete their reports, sometimes due to elaborate tests, some of which have to be carried out overseas.”

It is well known that the courts need more resources. The reality of concluding an inquiry into the Vitals deal within a 60-day period, as the Prime Minister seems to believe should have happened, is not realistic given the sheer mass of such an investigation, in addition to the rest of the workload a magistrate has.

For the Prime Minister to make the insinuations he has made says a lot about his priorities on this issue. It showed his frame of mind.

Another point is that the courts annulled the deal in a judgement which used the term fraudulent, a decision confirmed on appeal which included the word collusion. As the Prime Minister, he should be pleased that such a process has concluded and that prosecutions will occur. Instead he spent far too long focused on the timing of the inquiry’s conclusion. He is thinking like a leader of a political party, not a Prime Minister. And if he is thinking like a leader of a political party, that brings into question the government’s fight to get the funds given to the concessionaire back. The hospitals deal was already found to be wrong, as per the two judgements.

What is right for the country must come first, and what is right for the country is that if the magisterial inquiry found suspicions of wrongdoing, that prosecutions commence as seemingly they will. As the Prime Minister himself also said, the upcoming judicial process must have one aim, "the proper administration of justice."