The government is determined to turn the controversial bill on magisterial inquiries into law before the Easter recess, in time to make any judgment on Jason Azzopardi’s Clint Camilleri appeals irrelevant.
Sources from both sides of the House said the bill could be voted through the final stage of parliament as early as Wednesday, but added that a timeline is still not set in stone.
“What’s sure is that we want to get this bill through before April 14, when we probably go into recess for Easter,” said one MP who sits on the government benches.
After the vote, all that will be left is the president’s signature and the law’s publication in the Government Gazette.
The news comes after lawyer Jason Azzopardi contested a magistrate’s decision to turn down three requests for a probe into Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri, claiming that a different magistrate from the one handling the case authored the rejection.
The first of Azzopardi’s three appeals began on Wednesday. Judge Consuelo Scerri Herrera is set to deliver her judgment on April 29, but should the bill become law, any decision by the court would be irrelevant.
Last Tuesday, the parliamentary committee that refines bills before they are sent to parliament for a final vote discussed the bill, but did not conclude their work.
They, however, agreed that in their next meeting on Tuesday, the committee will conclude its work on the bill and send it back to parliament.
Once that is done, it is up to the government to decide when to take the bill to a vote.
Prime Minister Robert Abela announced a reform on magisterial inquiries last December on the back of a flurry of private requests for investigations by Azzopardi.
Justice Minister Jonathan Attard presented the bill to parliament weeks later.
When announced, the Nationalist Party and others, including rule-of-law NGO Repubblika, immediately voiced their strong opposition to the bill.
Outcry over proposal
In an unusual move, the PN even opposed the bill at the first stage of parliamentary procedure, before knowing what the contents of the bill were.
The reform led to an outcry due to two issues.
Once the bill becomes law, citizens will no longer be able to directly request a magistrate to open an inquiry but will first have to approach the police.
If the police do not act, citizens can then take their case to a judge, who will decide if an investigation is merited.
Secondly, the amendments will require more proof for an inquiry to be opened.
Other reforms, including a two-year deadline to complete an inquiry, the opportunity for victims of a crime to be updated about proceedings and a change in the way court experts are appointed, have attracted less controversy.
Once the parliamentary debate on the legislation began, most of the Nationalist Party’s MPs spoke at length, meaning that the second stage of the bill’s legislative journey took significantly longer than the norm.
At the time, Azzopardi was still waiting for the judiciary’s decision on his requests to open the inquiries into Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri.
Azzopardi had requested investigations into allegations involving Camilleri, his wife and ministry officials concerning road works in Nadur, berthing rights in Mġarr and works on a sports centre swimming pool in Victoria.
PN sources said that one reason for extending the debate for so long was to make sure that the magistrate made her decision before the law changed.
“If the law changes before the decision, anything decided by the magistrate would be irrelevant,” one PN MP said.
“We also wanted to keep debating so the issue remains on the national agenda for as long as possible.”
But PN parliamentary sources said that delaying the bill until after the appeals court sentence at the end of April is unlikely.
Several PN MPs said they are now expecting to vote on the bill in the coming days.
“To be honest, it now makes sense to hold the vote on Wednesday considering the protest,” one PN MP said.
Seven civil society organisations intend to protest against the controversial plans to reform magisterial inquiries outside parliament on Wednesday evening.
Led by rule-of-law NGO Repubblika, the organisations say the event is intended as a “final appeal to MPs not to weaken the fight against criminality and corruption”.