“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against,” African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X once said.
Regrettably, for Prime Minister Robert Abela and his government, it seems truth can only prevail if it suits their narrative.
The stand adopted by Abela with regard to the public inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination and the arrogant declaration made by his predecessor, Joseph Muscat, when he appeared before the three judges indicate that their intentions about the whole exercise are far from noble.
Abela keeps repeating the mantra that the institutions are working and that power is being decentralised. Still, he decided the public inqiry has had enough time to do its work, even if the retired judge presiding over the inquiry panel insists that the “search for truth should never be subjected to arbitrary and unilateral terms”. But Abela, very much like Muscat before him, heads a government that appears to prefer setting the scene itself and to keep pulling the strings.
The way in which supposedly autonomous and independent institutions, such as the police, the attorney general and regulators, functioned under Muscat’s watch could have been a major contributing factor leading to Caruana Galizia’s brutal assassination.
That may answer one of Muscat’s many questions to the public inquiry: if it is the state that should be investigated, why ignore what happened prior to 2013?
Caruana Galizia’s Running Commentary started in 2008 but she was killed in 2017, nine years later, when Muscat had already been running the country for four years.
Muscat evidently does not like what is emerging from the public inquiry, in which he is increasingly being projected as Hans Christian Andersen’s protagonist in The Emperor’s New Clothes.
The truth is evidently also becoming too stark for Abela to manage. Like Muscat, he too adopted an arrogant stance vis-a-vis the three judges, saying, through an official government statement, that they have arrogated to themselves the power to extend the term of the inquiry indefinitely.
Who else should? Does he realise that, as prime minister, he is also the subject of the inquiry?
He ominously told the three judges they must shoulder the responsibility for their decision and its implications.
The inquiry panel shouldered its responsibility fully the moment it decided to proceed with the hearings beyond the set deadline since the whole truth had yet to emerge. It was Abela who was irresponsible when he piled pressure on the judges to put a close to the inquiry.
According to its terms of reference, the public inquiry must, among other things, establish whether laws and practices are in place to avoid a de facto state of impunity and also determine whether the state is fulfilling its positive obligation to protect individuals whose lives are at risk from criminal acts, particularly in the case of journalists.
Given the information Caruana Galizia had in her possession about so many projects and individuals, the inquiry must be as wide as possible.
Of course, the process throughout the inquiry hasn’t been without flaws, and the summoning of certain witnesses remains questionable.
However, for truth, justice and the rule of law to truly prevail, law-abiding citizens can only trust the inquiry panel to come up with answers and, more importantly, recommendations.
How he will react to the board’s report will be Abela’s next crucial challenge.