Something strange has come over Malta. The current law, which gives private citizens the right to request a magisterial inquiry, is called an obscenity by Robert Abela.

However, senior law professors and various constituted bodies – from the Chamber of Advocates to the Chamber of Commerce – insist on speaking up on behalf of the “obscenity”. They’re urging the government to rethink the bill it’s rushing through parliament.

Alas, the justice minister, Jonathan Attard, didn’t get the memo. He has described the current provisions merely as “inadequate” – and only “with hindsight”. What kind of obscenity is only apparent with hindsight?

It wasn’t apparent to Labour in 2006. It voted for the law. At committee stage, its three representatives contributed to the current provisions, improving the draft. They had four meetings to discuss any changes they wanted. They approved the final text without objection.

Labour’s representatives were Gavin Gulia (from a family of distinguished judges); Anġlu Farrugia, now the Speaker; and Justyne Caruana, whose legal excellence sees her employed by Abela’s government as adviser to the tax department, the lands authority, the health ministry and the Victims Support Agency, bagging around €15,000 a month for her expertise.

They all missed the obscenity. But Abela declares it’s obscene and the rest can be damned.

Meanwhile, the obscenity-averse Abela is rushing a law whose wording – section 4A(e)(ii) – stipulates that a person may request the opening of a judicial inquiry provided that “a decision not to prosecute the suspected person shall not have been taken”.

At best, that is careless drafting (in Maltese, too) whose equivocal meaning opens a loophole. At worst, it means that a private citizen cannot request the opening of a judicial inquiry if the police or attorney general have decided not to prosecute someone.

If so, this bill undermines the law’s rationale. In other jurisdictions, this law gives citizens the right to seek justice in cases where they believe the police won’t, or can’t, give their case the attention it deserves. Abela’s reform will put citizens at the mercy of police decisions.

The current law is meant (as it is elsewhere) for the victims of a wide range of crimes, such as domestic violence and business fraud. All victims of such crimes lose out under Abela’s bill.

The law is relevant to any case – not just corruption – where the urgent preservation of evidence is necessary. The law protects anyone who feels the police won’t take their claims seriously or are too busy to do so.

By not allowing even for exceptions in urgent cases, the bill doesn’t just shield corrupt ministers from investigation. It also leaves ordinary crime victims with less protection from injustice. Their ability to resort to this law will be far more restricted.

It would be bad enough if this bill only made exposure of corruption more difficult. But, if it becomes law, its rot shall spread more broadly.

It’s an unconscionable bill. You can’t support it and claim to put the national interest first- Ranier Fsadni

And its rot shall go deeper. It upends the proper relationship between the police and the judiciary.

With this bill, you won’t need to provide court-grade evidence to report to the police; but you will need it to report to a judge. The police shall be trusted to use prima facie evidence in deciding whether an investigation is warranted. Judges, however, shall not be trusted.

Fancy that: judges whose judgment is doubted by the law, as written by politicians who may need to face those judges.

In court, they are trusted to decide if a case is frivolous but not at the inquiry stage.

In court, a judge is trusted to subject police actions to scrutiny. But not at the evidence-preservation stage, which influences whether a case gets to be prosecuted at all.

This bill subverts the authority of judges in serious criminal cases. As a class, judges have oversight over police functions. Their judgment should never count for less than that of the police.

A lot of the bill could be retained if its problematic parts were addressed; for example, if exceptions are made for urgent cases. In other jurisdictions, judges are trusted to decide if an applicant can bypass a requirement to report to the police first. Not in Malta, if this bill passes.

Alas, the only case of urgency that troubles the government is getting the law passed. Soon, the Gozo court is to decide on Jason Azzopardi’s requests for inquiries into the behaviour of the Gozo minister.

We’ve come full circle. In 2013, Labour boasted it removed the statute of limitations on political corruption. Twelve years later, it’s racing against the clock to prevent allegations of corruption from being investigated.

To do that, it’s ready to leave other citizens unprotected. It chips away at the authority of judges. It upsets the proper relationship between the police and the judiciary.

The bill should outrage even those who still trust the independence of the attorney general and the police force. It’s a bill that could only be promoted by a government bent on prioritising its own survival and ready to let all the rest be damned.

It’s an unconscionable bill. You can’t support it and claim to put the national interest first. It’s time for all constitutional patriots to step up.

No one in good conscience can vote for the bill. Nor sign it into law.