The Chamber of Advocates has urged politicians having potential conflicts of interest to stay away from current investigations involving the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder.
In a statement is called for “restraint by people in power” in handling the current situation, “free of conflicts of interest,” especially in view of the fact that police investigations involve “present and past ministers and holders of high office.”
Such conflicts of interest, it said, “pose a clear and present danger to the investigation, and the subsequent judicial process.”
“These are challenging times and it is in these times that our institutions and the separation of powers within the state will be tried and tested” said the Chamber, adding that this made it all the more important for the institutions to function without undue pressure.
As for the issue of the presidential pardon, the Chamber explained that the “advice of the Executive signifies that both the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General have a vital role in properly assessing and eventually advising who should shoulder responsibility for the criminal actions and who should be exonerated a priori from such responsibility: a function normally belonging to the judiciary following a trial.”
In this particular case, the pardon requested was “far more delicate than usual, for reasons which need hardly be explained.”
The government is currently considering a request for a pardon by Yorgen Fenech, a person of interest in the Caruana Galizia investigation who, sources say, had pointed fingers as former Chief of Staff Keith Schembri.
In the light of all this, the Chamber stressed the importance of “returning the country to a state of normality and proper governance; and to undertake with utmost urgency the required constitutional reforms to ensure the resilience and independence of vital institutions from the executive arm of the State, including particularly the requirement of a Commissioner of Police and an Attorney General elected by two-thirds majority of the House of Representatives.”