Joseph Muscat has dropped a court case in which he claimed his rights were breached by an ongoing magisterial inquiry – but announced he will be filing another case to continue fighting for his rights.

On Monday, Muscat’s lawyers informed Madame Justice Doreen Clarke that they were dropping the case claiming the former prime minister's rights were breached by an ongoing magisterial inquiry into the hospitals' privatisation deal annulled by the courts last year.

The former prime minister then said on Facebook that he was dropping the case and instituting a new one because the court had not allowed him to present documents, including a document in which the NGO Repubblika declared that it never indicated him as a person to be investigated in connection with the hospitals deal. The court's decision refusing him the opportunity to present the best evidence to the magisterial inquiry in itself constituted a breach of his rights, he argued. 

The inquiry, which started in 2019, was initiated on the request of NGO Repubblika and is looking into any criminal wrongdoing by individuals involved in that deal. It originally targeted former ministers Chris Cardona, Konrad Mizzi and Edward Scicluna but was later widened to include Muscat.

The legal saga started in June last year when Muscat filed a case calling for Magistrate Gabriella Vella not to continue to lead the inquiry into the privatisation of three state hospitals. He also called for the inquiry to be transferred to another magistrate "who would be objectively and subjectively impartial".

Muscat pleaded that Magistrate Vella could not continue leading the inquiry because of continuous leaks of the proceedings, including from her investigators and because for more than a year, she did not accept his numerous requests to testify.

The magistrate, he wrote on Facebook, accepted a report against him without granting him the legal right to reply, and she did not recuse herself despite public comments on the merits of the case by her close relatives.

Times of Malta had reported earlier that investigators suspected consultancy payments that the former prime minister received in the months after he resigned were intended to hide kickbacks in plain sight.

Of particular interest was €60,000 that Muscat received from companies linked to the failed hospitals' privatisation deal. The payments were part of a 36-month, €15,000-a-month consultancy contract Muscat signed, though payments stopped abruptly after four months.

In his case filed in the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, Muscat had argued that a section of the Criminal Code which allows a private citizen to request a magisterial inquiry was in breach of his right to a fair trial.

The law, he said, did not offer the constitutional guarantees and procedural safeguards granted to people who are investigated following a police report. The fact that he was not notified that he was a suspect breached his fair trial rights, his lawyers say.

Muscat also filed a court application a few weeks ago to include another request in his case. His request centred around the laws that regulate the circulation of court documents.

These, he said, were in breach of his rights to a fair trial. That request fell short as Madame Justice Clarke ruled that Muscat’s request was “an attempt to start a new case” based on facts that emerged during the case he opened last year.

Muscat: This is not the end of the battle for justice

In Monday’s sitting Muscat dropped the case, but in a Facebook post he noted  this was not the end of his battle for justice.

“The truth will emerge,” he said, as he explained that to be able to open a new case, he had to drop the current one.

He said Repubblika claimed they never named him as a person who ought to be investigated, yet Magistrate Vella decided to involve him and send the police to his home. But Repubblika did not want the document that showed this to be presented during the inquiry.

He said he was filing a new case to argue that a system that did not allow such evidence to be exhibited was in breach of his rights. He insisted that he had nothing to hide.

In a reaction, Repubblika's Robert Aquilina said Muscat had his back against the wall. 

"We will stand in his way, irrespective of the number of attempts he makes to flee from justice," Aquilina said.

In a Facebook post, Repubblika's lawyer Jason Azzopardi wrote: "Checkmate. Joseph Muscat. He had to cede."