Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi claimed on Tuesday that the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner were refusing to hand them “important documents” from the Vitals inquiry, thus breaching their rights as suspects to full disclosure and a fair trial.
The former prime minister’s chief of staff, and former minister made the claims in two judicial protests against the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner.
They said that they were notified about the criminal charges against them upon the conclusions of the years-long magisterial inquiry into the Vitals hospitals concession.
It is the first time that Mizzi and Schembri have reacted since the charges were filed against a number of individuals and companies variously connected to the deal.
Schembri and Mizzi, along with former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, face the most serious charges of money laundering, bribery, trading in influence and a long list of other charges, including setting up a criminal association. They are due to be arraigned next Tuesday.
Kasco Engineering Limited and FSV Limited, both owned by Schembri, are among the accused.
The inquiry was triggered by NGO Repubblika in 2019.
'No one spoke to us before charges were pressed'
Mizzi and Schembri in their protests said that although the nature of the charges demanded a mandatory explanation from the person charged, no one ever spoke to them before the charges were pressed.
Nor were they given “effective disclosure” by the prosecution, thus subjecting them to even greater prejudice.
Upon the court’s direction the prosecution had given them the inquiry report but refused to hand over the appendices referred to in that report, even though most of those attachments were already in digital format.
Replying, the Attorney General said that in her decree, the magistrate was very clear. What was to be made available were the proces verbal and any other material evidence which the police may have, resulting from any parallel investigation.
The prosecution had handed over the proces verbal and was not obliged to hand over any other documentation. That documentation would be presented in court as part of the magisterial inquiry “in its entirety,” the AG said.
But Schembri and Mizzi’s lawyers insisted that that information should have been handed over to them as soon as they were considered “suspects.” The Criminal Code itself granted that right to suspects and persons accused.
Article 543AF of the Code states that such people are to have free access to all material evidence, both against and in their favour, held in police possession. That evidence may be made available to their lawyers so as to safeguard their fair trial and to be able to prepare a valid defence.
As peoplefacing criminal charges, Schembri and Mizzi had every right to “full disclosure” from the very early stages of the compilation of evidence and especially before the court decreed whether there was sufficient prima facie evidence for the accused to stand trial on indictment.
Such right to full disclosure was also part and parcel of the accused’s fundamental right to fair trial as safeguarded in terms of the European Convention on Human Rights, the pair argue.
They called on the AG and the Police Commissioner to immediately grant them full disclosure without further delay, holding them responsible in damages.
They also formally warned that they would institute constitutional proceedings should this rights violation not be remedied as soon as possible.
Objections to Repubblika being admitted as an injured party
Schembri and Mizzi also filed two separate replies to Repubblika’s bid to be admitted as an injured party in the criminal cases against them.
Repubblika’s request, they said, was “nothing but a legal manouevre” to try to intervene in proceedings where the organization had no right to be.
Repubblika had no interest in those proceedings in terms of law and their allegations “merited no reply.”
“The only thing to say at this stage is that [Repubblika’s] allegations were more akin to a book of Aesop’s fables than a serious judicial protest,” they said.
Those allegations were both factually and legally “totally unfounded,” rebutted the lawyers, calling upon Repubblika to desist from any further odious, frivolous and vexatious action.
Lawyers Edward Gatt, Mark Vassallo and Shaun Zammit signed the judicial acts.