Updated 4pm with Borg comment

Franco Debono has called out PN critics of plans to reform magisterial inquiries, saying the party had itself sought to control such inquiries when it was in government.

Debono, a defence lawyer and former PN MP, noted that in 2006 the PN had explicitly tried to introduce “some form of control” on citizens' ability to request inquiries. That attempt, by then-minister Tonio Borg, was eventually stymied following Opposition pressure.

Borg, who is now a law professor at the University of Malta, has accused the present government of trying to revise the inquiry system to allow it to bypass court oversight. 

Writing on Monday, Debono said Borg “has obviously forgotten what he himself said about this law when he was a minister”.

Borg served as Justice and Home Affairs Minister between 1998 and 2008 as well as deputy prime minister under Lawrence Gonzi.

What happened in 2006?

In July 2006, Borg presented changes to the Criminal Code that sought to do two things: ensure that magistrates leading inquiries requested by citizens be drawn randomly by lot, and require any such request to be approved by the chief justice before it could proceed. At the time, the chief justice was appointed without any input from the Opposition.

Speaking in parliament’s consideration of bills committee, Borg had described such citizen-led inquiries as “something exceptional.”

“To my knowledge it has only happened three times, and I think it is good for there to be some form of control over starting a magisterial inquiry,” Borg told the committee.

He also expressed concern about frivolous inquiry requests by citizens having very serious consequences.  

“I can say ‘Borg is corrupt, because that’s what I believe and I received reports to that effect,’ and an inquiry begins. And after a year of the newspapers reporting that I’m the subject of an inquiry, the attorney general says ‘none of that was true’.”

“That’s what caused suicides in Italy,” he had said, referring to a spate of suicides that followed investigations into Italy’s infamous Tangentopoli scandal.

Ultimately, the provision requiring the chief justice to give such inquiries the go-ahead was dropped. Instead, magistrates' decisions were made subject to appeal, to be heard by a judge. That provision remains in place to this day.

Debono: Government wanted control over inquiries

Debono drew parallels between what the government is trying to do now and what Borg wanted back in 2006.

“The government of the time wanted to introduce a form of control - Tonio Borg himself said it – for something he described as ‘exceptional’… by requiring the chief justice’s permission. It’s clear they wanted to prevent having inquiries requested willy-nilly [bla ddoc],” Debono said. “That sounds a lot like the situation we have today.” 

As an MP, Debono had proposed multiple reforms to Malta’s government and judicial systems but faced internal party opposition to introduce them. Several of Debono’s proposals have since become law. 

"Maybe every party in government wants to control this mechanism, which could prove embarrassing to it," Debono mused.

"The PN wanted to involve the chief justice, Labour wants to involve the police and require admissible evidence. I leave it to you to decide whether the chief justice or police are better equipped to investigate [alleged crimes]." 

Borg, who went on to serve as a European Commissioner, has said he is aghast at Labour plans to tighten controls on magisterial inquiries.

Borg: We reached a compromise

In a Times of Malta opinion piece published on Monday, Borg said the reform proposal “gags the voice of the public and attempts to silence the whistleblowers of this world while protecting those who run roughshod of the law – in line with Labour’s tradition.”

Borg said he was perplexed by Debono's criticism. 

"I chose to amend that 2006 provision [requiring the chief justice's approval] following consultation with the Labour Opposition. We could have left it unchanged as we had a majority, but we found a compromise.

"Now Labour wants to override that system - which it had voted in favour of - and introduce a series of hurdles to prevent such inquiries," he told Times of Malta.

How the government wants to reform inquiries

The plan was unveiled last month and is now being fast-tracked through parliament. It includes multiple proposals, from setting a two-year deadline on citizen-requested inquiries to raising the bar of evidence admissible as evidence when making such a request. The reform also seeks to revise the way in which court experts are appointed and paid.

Most controversially, the reform would require private citizens to file a police report and then wait six months before they can petition the court to order a magisterial inquiry into alleged criminal wrongdoing.

The Opposition, Chamber of Advocates, civil society organisations and even a former chief justice have all decried the reform as being a thinly-veiled attempt to shield politicians from judicial scrutiny.

Despite those concerns, the government is rushing the bill through parliament and will debate it on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Robert Abela first announced the reform in mid-December, after former PN MP Jason Azzopardi filed requests for court probes into one of his ministers.

Abela said Azzopardi was abusing the system for political ends.

“They have to pass over my dead body. I will not let them destroy my ministers,” the prime minister said of the inquiry requests.

Azzopardi subsequently filed several other inquiry requests into ministers and government officials. The courts rejected some of those while others were dismissed on a technicality.