Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1531608
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 JANUARY 2025 ANALYSIS KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt THOSE who are abusing the long-es- tablished system of magisterial inquir- ies (technically known as the in genere in legal jargon) to further their cruel political agendas are arguing that the government wants to restrict the rights of citizens to combat corruption and wrongdoing. False. Let me cut to the chase and go straight to the point. The blue heroes – that extremist faction within PN – are us- ing magisterial inquiries as a tool for political persecution. No more, no less. Prime Minister Robert Abela made it clear that he wants a stop to this abuse, and the first steps have already been taken. Our legal set-up, which has evolved over time, provides a plethora of effec- tive structures and legal avenues with which individuals can report alleged wrongdoings. In all democratic societies, including those which we consider to be trail- blazers in the field of criminal justice, the executive police is the foremost institution which is provided with the responsibility to preserve public order, prevent, detect and investigate offenc- es, collect evidence and bring offenders before the judicial authorities. The ex- ecutive police is and should be the first port of call for those who want to report crimes. Furthermore, in cases involving pol- iticians and people in public life, indi- viduals can also seek recourse to the Ombudsman, the Standards Commis- sioner, the Auditor General, or the Per- manent Commission Against Corrup- tion. Malta also has a legal framework for whistleblowers in place. Those legal avenues were either bol- stered or created by subsequent La- bour governments since 2013. In fact, throughout the past generation we im- plemented one reform after another, enhancing the independence of prose- cutions, increasing judicial scrutiny on decisions taken by the prosecutor, and introducing procedures to safeguard the rights of suspects, such as their right to a lawyer and the right to disclosure. This happened after years of total pa- ralysis during the GonziPN years which had led parliament to declare its lack of confidence in the justice minister of the day. I am honoured to have contributed, as minister responsible for justice in the past, to many of these changes and I applaud my hardworking successors – Edward Zammit Lewis and Jonathan Attard for continuing to implement more reforms that improved the justice system. This hard work was positively noted by the Venice Commission and the European Commission. Let us not forget that when under a Nationalist administration Nationalist MP Franco Debono proposed a holis- tic reform of the justice system he was completely ignored – to put it mildly. Most of the current blue heroes oc- cupied pride and place in the highest echelons of the Nationalist Party at the time. Last Christmas Eve, the extremist fac- tion that calls the shots within the PN was busy filing legal proceedings and asking for magisterial inquiries to be held on members of the executive, key civil servants and business organisa- tions on the basis of newspaper reports and portal printouts. They were and still are on a rampage trying to wreak havoc against individuals and their families that the extremist faction has decided to target in a cruel and inhumane way. Today, members of the executive are passing through this cruel calvary, but tomorrow it could be someone else – perhaps it could be people from the other party who do not form part of the blue heroes' clique or people in busi- ness. Basically, it could be anyone, who, those posing as the paladins of the rule of law, decide to target depending on the criteria they set. This is indeed a very serious matter, particularly when one keeps in mind the lack of credibility of all those in- volved in this flagrant abuse of the in genere procedure. We have recently witnessed the case of Cabinet Secretary Ryan Spagnol, who was accused by former PN MP Ja- son Azzopardi of very serious corrupt practices. The former PN MP had taken to Face- book and called the cabinet secretary 'criminal' and 'corrupt', when the latter filed libel proceedings. These allega- tions have since been withdrawn and an apology has been put forward. But the harm had been done, and I have no doubt that the cabinet secretary and his family went through hard times. In 2019, I, too, was at the receiving end from the very same person who tried to tarnish Ryan Spagnol's reputation. On Facebook, he called me a 'criminal' and a 'liar'. I immediately filed libel proceed- ings, and in 2022, three years later, the person who tried to tarnish my repu- tation formally retracted his claims in Court. The same thing happened to my colleague, Labour MP Carmelo Abela, who instituted libel proceedings against this very same person. Carmelo went on to win the case. As I write, these very same paladins of the rule of law are addressing the press, in front of the police headquarters in Floriana, to lash out against a magis- trate who ordered the police to inves- tigate how the contents of an inquiry, abusively ended up in their hands. The magistrate said that they should have never been given access to such a sen- sitive document and that the leaks be- trayed a lack of integrity in the officials who chose to share the confidential document. The government will make the nec- essary reforms for the sake of a better, fairer and stronger criminal justice sys- tem. Magisterial inquiries and political persecutions Owen Bonnici is minister for national heritage, the arts and local government Owen Bonnici THE Chamber of Advocates has no vis- ibility of government's planned reform of magisterial inquiries, its president Peter Fenech has told MaltaToday. "We have not been consulted and we found out about government's in- tention to go ahead with the reform through the media like anybody else," Fenech said when contacted. The government has so far refrained from giving details of the Bill it intends to put forward to amend the provisions in the Criminal Code that regulate mag- isterial inquiries. Known in legal termi- nology as in genere inquiries, they are intended to preserve evidence of a sus- pected crime. The law as it stands today allows an ordinary citizen to request a magisterial inquiry. Justice Minister Jonathan Attard has put forward the First Reading of the Bill in parliament but the text proper of the amendments was not tabled. "We will await the publication of the Bill and give our reaction accordingly, if need be," Fenech said. Chamber of Advocates learnt of inquiry reform through the media Chamber of Advocates president Peter Fenech Karol Aquilina: "The government is up in arms over this because several government ministers have been investigated over allegations. If the government needs to change anything, it must strengthen citizens' access to inquiries, not weaken it." SEE INTERVIEW MT2 and online