Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1515420
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MARCH 2022 OPINION 2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 FEBRUARY 2024 Abela should back off from criticising ongoing hospitals inquiry Editorial THERE is reason to question the length of time it is taking Magistrate Gabriella Vella to conclude the in- quiry into the hospitals scandal. But it should not be the Prime Minister or anybody in government, who should do the questioning. More than four years after Repubblika petitioned the courts to open a magisterial inquiry into the hospitals contract, nobody knows at what stage the investigation has arrived. That an inquiry takes long to conclude is not something out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, we have come to expect that magisterial inquiries are like some sort of black hole – we know when they start but have no visibility as to when they will end. The hospitals inquiry is hardly the only one to enter this black hole. Indeed, information tabled in parliament in April last year showed that there were nearly 1,700 magisterial inquiries that re- mained pending, with the oldest one dating back to 1979. There are countless victims of road and work- place accidents out there, who remain without justice because inquiries into the cases they were involved in have not wrapped up. Although there may be varied reasons for the delays, this is unfair on the victims and the poten- tial suspects. We've said it last year and we repeat it again now: The judiciary is independent but it cannot function as if it operates in a vacuum. The judici- ary cannot be swayed by public opinion or political pressure because that would be a disservice to justice but it has to be sensitive to society's expec- tations. The hospitals inquiry has significant and serious political ramifications. The magistrate is probing the involvement of three former ministers – Chris Cardona, Konrad Mizzi and Edward Scicluna – in the deal. While Cardona and Mizzi today have no public role, Scicluna is the governor of the Central Bank of Malta. But the inquiry is also probing the actions of for- mer prime minister Joseph Muscat, who resigned in 2019 on the back of revelations that the man indicted as the mastermind of Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder, Yorgen Fenech, had strong links to Castille. Admittedly, the hospitals inquiry is not a simple open and shut case. It not only involves Maltese players but also foreign individuals and companies. The magistrate may have to receive information from foreign jurisdictions, which in itself can delay the process if cooperation is scant. And one would expect that the magistrate will leave no stone unturned to ensure that if there is suspicion of wrongdoing this can eventually be prosecuted with success. The magistrate's job is to collect evidence, pre- serve it and determine whether enough proof exists at face value that warrants a criminal inves- tigation and prosecution. The inquiry will not find guilt or otherwise but on the basis of the evidence at hand recommend whether anybody can be charged and if so with what criminal offence. Given the people involved, most especially Mus- cat, any recommendation to prosecute will un- doubtedly raise the political temperature. This should not stop the magistrate from reach- ing the conclusions she deems fit but she also has to understand that every word and comma in her report need to be used judiciously because what she says has repercussions that go beyond the indi- viduals involved. Within this context, we have serious reservations about Prime Minister Robert Abela's harsh criti- cism of the time it is taking the magistrate to con- clude her investigation. Given that the subject matter of the inquiry in- volves a government contract – a flagship project of the Muscat administration – and implicates ex-politicians who held very senior roles, Abela should have desisted from his public criticism. Abela has waded into dangerous territory. His criticism undermines the inquiry in the eyes of La- bour Party supporters and adds fodder to the fire before it even lights up. The Prime Minister has disarmed himself of the moral authority to tell his supporters to back off and allow the institutions to do their job if the in- quiry recommends criminal action be taken against his predecessor. And flirting with a Joseph Muscat candidacy in the European Parliament election makes Abela's actions look all the more sinister. If the Prime Minister truly believes that mag- isterial inquiries should be more efficient (they should), he should use the legislative route to enact those changes that may be needed to have a speed- ier and fairer justice system… for all. He is also in the position of providing all the resources that may be necessary to lubricate the wheels of justice… for all. His concerns and questioning must not start and stop with inquiries of his choosing. If the system is broken it is his duty to try and fix it… for all. Quote of the Week "My appeal is for us not to take our democracy for granted, but to defend it by taking part." European Parliament President Roberta Metsola at an EU leaders summit in Brussels, underscoring the importance of European elections due in June. MaltaToday 10 years ago 2 February 2014 State moves in to take control of local wardens THE running of Malta's local enforcement sys- tem has become too costly to keep up with the expectations of the two private companies which provide Malta's and Gozo's 44 local councils with wardens, CCTV cam- eras, and speed cameras, and the only way it can survive is to issue more tickets and col- lect more fines. But Labour seems to be living up to a warn- ing sounded by Joseph Muscat in 2011 that the "sub- sidised racket" of local enforcement would longer be tolerated under a new govern- ment. "Yesterday, parliamentary secretary for local government José Herrera unveiled plans for a new centralised unit to take over the manning of local wardens. Herrera has pledged a 30% reduction in costs - a reduction that industry insiders de- duce can only be achieved by cutting out the private sector. But the parliamentary secretary said that today's system was built on the misleading as- sumption that it should make money for local councils when in reality, uncollected fines and a decline in contraventions and speed- ing offences being committed, has rendered the system unsustainble to run. Herrera's solution will be to turn the LES in- to a national unit of wardens serving councils, rather than the private operators taking over 70% of the total fines issued over the years. Labour taking on 'subsidised racket Malta's local warden system is in the pro- cess of being reformed, 14 years after it was first introduced – but the jury is out on what government's plans for a centralised unit means for people like Kenneth De Martino, whose Guard & Warden Service runs the gamut of local enforcement services, deploy- ing wardens to the coun- cils, monitoring CCTV systems and also processing speed camera fines. ...