In a functioning democracy, insistence to publish the findings of a magisterial inquiry may look odd.
However, within a culture of impunity and where those in sensitive offices are increasingly influenced by their political masters, trust is replaced by doubt and suspicion.
Impunity on Joseph Muscat’s watch led to the assassination of a journalist. That culture of impunity continues to this very day.
Questions continue being asked about the integrity of top officials as to how willing and able they are to investigate allegations of wrongdoing and prosecute in cases of prima facie criminal responsibility even if they happen to have a political tinge.
Decisions by the attorney general to issue a no-prosecution order in the Pilatus Bank saga are still fresh in many people’s minds.
As is the blatant reluctance by the police commissioner to always carry out the duty imposed upon him by law “to collect evidence... and to bring the offenders, whether principals or accomplices, before the judicial authorities”.
We have seen a number of high-profile political cases where the police prefer to go by what the inquiring magistrate concludes, even when, as in the Vitals inquiry, certain aspects required further investigation.
It is against this background that the many calls to publish the 17 Black inquiry findings must be viewed. They certainly are not frivolous.
Given the scandals and filth that surfaced over the past few years and with no end in sight, putting all cards on the table is the only logical way forward to ensure that the truth prevails and justice is done both in terms of criminal and political responsibility.
It takes three for justice to reign supreme and the laws to be enforced: the court, the attorney general and the police. And yet, so many rightly continue casting their doubts as to whether the attorney general and the police commissioner are putting their political masters above the people and the republic they have sworn to serve.
Which is why many law-abiding citizens feel the only hope is the judiciary; hence the requests for magisterial inquiries and, now, for the 17 Black inquiry report to be published in full.
The inquiry centred around plans by Yorgen Fenech’s company 17 Black to pay millions to Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi via secretive offshore structures in Panama.
The prime minister says he would like the report to be released. The attorney general, however, told MEP David Casa he will not get a copy because of the “eventual prosecution of those accused”.
If the interests of the accused need to be protected so also do the interests of the victims of the crime: the people.
Suspicious minds may wonder whether the delay is a charade, simply a way to win some time for the party in power to prepare its ‘defence’, and the prospective accused to look for loopholes – as has happened already – to extend the proceedings rather than demand urgency to prove their innocence soonest.
In the Vitals hospitals’ inquiry, too, there was a lot of going back and forth, reluctance and posturing but the inquiry was eventually published and people were charged.
When Caruana Galizia had first cited the name 17 Black, and then when our journalists revealed who was behind it, those with so much to lose tried to treat the revelations as almost a joke.
They tried to misguide us and claim that these are “regurgitated claims”.
They still do.
And that is all the more reason why the 17 Black inquiry report should be released right away.