A magistrate has ordered the police to investigate how an inquiry into Pilatus Bank ended up in the hands of former Repubblika president Robert Aquilina after access to the document led the organisation to challenge the decision not to prosecute the bank’s top officials.
In a decision on Tuesday, magistrate Nadine Sant Lia rejected civil society group Repubblika’s request for police commissioner Angelo Gafa to take criminal action against Pilatus Bank's top officials, ruling there was insufficient evidence for prosecution.
However, in that same judgement, Sant Lia ordered the police commissioner to instead turn his sights to the parties who instituted the case, arguing that Aquilina should have never been given access to such a sensitive document and that the leaks betrayed a “lack of integrity” in the officials who chose to share the confidential document.
“The court is ordering that a copy of all witness testimony and evidence exhibited during these proceedings be sent to the (Police) Commissioner to immediately open an investigation into how and by whom direct and physical access to this inquiry was given to third parties, particularly Notary Robert Aquilina, who stated several times that the inquiry was shown to him in its original state and that he had no legal authority to do so at the time. This investigation should be as wide as possible and that takes into account the severity and sensitivity of this document and for the necessary action to be taken,” the decree ordering the investigation reads.
Sant Lia said it was “shocking” that Aquilina was allowed to see the inquiry when he did not have permission to do so, as it meant that a public official had exposed a highly sensitive document in a private setting.
“At the end of the day, this has only served to prejudice the integrity of the inquiry, exposed every single person who worked on it in a bad light and revealed information that could have reached suspects before time,” the magistrate said.
Such actions by public officials have also painted a grim outlook on the seriousness of the public institutions involved - namely members of the police corps or the office of the attorney general, she added. This has cast doubt on the capacity of those same institutions to do their jobs in a neutral and just way and without any malign or ulterior motives.
It is also incredibly worrying that the institutions in possession of the inquiry appeared to keep no strict controls or security on the document, Sant Lia continued and said it was “astonishing” that the document was travelling with no surveillance.
“The fact that this behaviour happened under one of the three pillars of justice renders a lack of confidence in the integrity of the officials who were given access to it and can only leave the people dumbstruck by their flagrant behaviour,” she continued.
“How no one from these three pillars took no action to preserve the integrity of the inquiry and put a stop to it can only give rise to more abuse.”
‘Perversion of justice’
At a press conference outside the police headquarters on Thursday, Aquilina said that Magistrate Sant Lia’s sentence was a “perversion of justice”, having essentially given the police commissioner Angelo Gafà and attorney general Victoria Buttigieg a free pass to disobey the “legitimate orders” of the inquiring magistrate.
Aquilina said that Sant Lia’s sentence was full of contradictions, as while on the one hand she says there is no evidence to prosecute, she simultaneously ordered a criminal investigation to find out how that proof made its way to Repubblika.
Aquilina doubled down on protecting his sources and said that it is both unacceptable and not at all in the interest of justice to know how information was passed on to the group.
Addressing Prime Minister Robert Abela, Aquilina warned that civil society will not allow itself to be persecuted.
“If you are going to go down this road of frame-ups and persecutions, you will find us stopping you,” he said.
“Abela knows well enough what we are capable of because if it weren’t for us, he wouldn’t be prime minister and we will do to him what we did to Joseph (Muscat).”
Repubblika president Vicki Ann Cremona said she could not understand why the magistrate was more concerned about how the NGO got their hands on the inquiry than why its contents were ignored by the authorities.
“Without protection for whistleblowers we will never get rid of corruption,” she said.
Repubblika had previously sought to have Sant Lia removed from hearing the nolle prosequi case after they deemed her familial ties to lawyer Pawlu Lia to be a conflict of interest.
After she refused, the NGO filed a constitutional lawsuit claiming that its fundamental right to a fair hearing would be breached if the magistrate were to continue to hear the case.
Another court had upheld Repubblika’s request, suspending the challenge proceedings and ordering their reassignment to a different magistrate. But the state advocate successfully appealed that decision.