A 20-year-old was delivering some tools at a construction site. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Suddenly, the edifice crumbled, burying him. His lifeless body was recovered 15 hours later. He was the only son of Isabelle Bonnici.

The mother has been campaigning for a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act. The act was specifically designed for investigations into serious incidents, disasters and misfortunes which can indicate serious shortcomings by public authorities.

In this case, the building crumbled spontaneously. It was not hit by an explosion or collapsed owing to some external event. It fell on its own.

This in itself merits investigation. Buildings ought not to just collapse.

This tragic event was aggravated by the fact that (a) the land on which the building was being constructed is government-owned and (b) those who commissioned the work and were given legal title over the public land were both under criminal investigation.

Nothing could be more serious. Nothing could cry out more for a public investigation. To aggravate matters, a few days after the tragic incident, the building regulator, which should have secured the safety of the site in question, organised a lavish Christmas reception to celebrate its achievements in the past year, and this in breach of public sector directives.

And yet the government has elected to indulge in a sadistic struggle and intransigence with Isabelle Bonnici. At first, streamers demanding a full inquiry, fixed to the building in front of parliament, were removed in the same way as the wreaths, flowers and candles were removed from the ad hoc memorial to Daphne Caruana Galizia in Valletta.

When Bonnici cornered the prime minister on his way to parliament, Robert Abela uttered the usual mantra of “letting the institutions work”, saying there was a magisterial inquiry in process.

His error in reasoning is this. A magisterial inquiry will only investigate whether a criminal offence has been committed. A public inquiry – such as the Caruana Galizia inquiry – would go further than that. It would investigate the facts and draw lessons from what happened, make proposals so that such a tragic event would not happen again, and investigate whether malpractices – not necessarily illegalities – occurred in the process.

As the parents of the deceased said: “This was as much the result of inaction by state entities, and administrative, regulatory and legislative failure, as it was the result of actions of persons involved in the site’s development.”

In the years 2010 to 2022, there were 49 construction worker fatalities. Of these, only 15 cases were closed and 69 per cent remain open. Moreover, court decisions have been issued in only five cases, the last being in 2015. Thirty-four of the 49 fatalities on construction sites have occurred since then.

The government has elected to indulge in a sadistic struggle and intransigence with Isabelle Bonnici- Tonio Borg

These horrifying facts merit a full inquiry.

Bonnici persisted in her endeavours even when ridiculed by some callous persons on social media. She persevered in spite of a thick blank wall of official inertia and resistance.

Like the mothers of the desaparecidos in Argentina, she distributed leaflets, stopped members of parliament on their way to the House, stuck photos of her only son on the lawn of the Office of the Prime Minister and a streamer on the gate of the police headquarters.

Her persistence in favour of what is right is admirable. Because she campaigned with the Nationalist opposition, both were accused of “political exploitation” of a tragic incident.

Indeed, the opposition has a right and duty to put her proposals to the House. This is what it did on July 6 through a resolution calling for a public inquiry.

All government MPs slavishly spoke against the motion. The same MPs who voted in second reading to allow abortion on demand, only to be rebuffed by public opinion and pressure, are now against a public inquiry to discover the truth following an incident in which an innocent youth lost his life.

To add insult to injury, the prime minister claimed that such a public inquiry would be an obstacle to the search for truth and to the magisterial inquiry in progress.

I remember in the early 1990s, as a backbencher, witnessing the then Labour opposition clamouring for a public inquiry following the death of a prisoner at the Corradino Correctional Facility owing to a drug overdose. The then minister responsible for prisons agreed to hold one. He did not hide behind the magisterial inquiry. The board of inquiry eventually released its report and suggested the way forward. Oh, for the good old days.

Why does the government not follow suit and emulate the transparency of a Nationalist government? What has it got to lose? Unless, as claimed in one streamer hung at the police HQ, there is something to hide or someone to protect.

Tonio Borg is a former European Commissioner and deputy prime minister.