Former minister Konrad Mizzi dodged questions on the court judgment that found the government colluded with Steward Healthcare on the hospitals deal.

Replying to Times of Malta questions on Monday, Mizzi said the government made its best effort to make the project work and that the judgment means there will be "a policy change".

“Successive ministries and legislatures, even after my exit from politics, made their best effort to make the hospitals' project work, up until the February 2023 judgment which annulled the concession," he said.

"That judgment is now final, and the outcome is that the government will run the hospitals under the public administration. This represents a policy change, but I am convinced that the government will continue to make the right decisions in order to deliver the best public health service to the nation.”

Mizzi was the health minister between 2014 and 2016 and had most controversially engineered a side deal with Steward offering them a €100 million payout should a court annul its contract with the government to run the St Luke's, Karin Grech and Gozo hospitals.

Last May the Auditor General accused Mizzi of misleading the cabinet when he engineered that deal, but Mizzi had maintained he always acted in the country's best interest.

On Monday an appeals court declared the hospitals' deal officially null and void.

The decision confirms a landmark judgment earlier in the year to cancel contracts related to the deal, on the basis that Steward had not fulfilled its contractual obligations. The court had concluded that the hospitals' deal appeared to be fraudulent.

Mizzi was asked for a reaction to the appeals' court ruling.

He was also asked to comment on the fact that the appeals court ruled that "senior government officials" were complicit in the privatisation fraud and that the Maltese government had failed in its duty to protect the national interest, defending Steward throughout the process.

Times of Malta also asked Mizzi whether he felt he was "responsible for anything that happened", however, he did not answer the question.

I was not mentioned in the judgment: Schembri

Monday's appeals judgment implicates Joseph Muscat and his top brass in wrongdoing even more than the original sentence.

While the original court decision had pinned the blame for the "fraudulent" deal on Steward, the court of appeal said it also believed there was "collusion between Steward and senior government officials or its agencies".

The intent, it said, was "to draft contracts intended not to deliver quality medical service, but other things".

Questions were also sent to former prime minister Joseph Muscat and his former chief of staff Keith Schembri.

While Muscat had not replied by late afternoon, Schembri sent a one-liner: "At no point was I mentioned in this court judgement or in the previous one".

Emails filed by Steward as part of their appeal suggest Schembri played an important role in negotiations for the company to take over from Vitals.

Steward is still battling the government within an arbitration court, the International Chamber of Commerce, as it believes it is owed the €100 million cancellation fee.