Not my job to intervene

It’s not accidental that Prime Minister Robert Abela always has the back of his predecessor. He has no choice but to bless and sanction everything his friend did or omitted to do during his seven years as prime minister. Abela knows that Joseph Muscat still commands a special place in the heart of many diehard Labour supporters.

Back in the golden years of the 1970s, a businessman walked into Castille and alleged to then prime minister Dom Mintoff that his trade minister, Patrick Holland, was running an import licence system based upon bribes. The next day the businessman was arrested and taken to court accused of having criminally defamed the reputation of the trade minister.

In 2014, former Labour Party CEO Jimmy Magro, having been appointed to a post of influence within the Labour administration, allegedly attempted to squeeze a substantial bribe out of someone bidding for a cleaning contract. The bidder, Victor Bonello, refused to do so and, instead, went to Castille to inform  Muscat, then prime minister, about the attempt.

Magro was charged in court and is appealing his four years and eight months prison sentence handed down last month.

However, it emerged in court that Muscat, who had been elected on an anti-corruption platform of good governance, did not want to hear what Bonello had to say.

Today, Muscat argues that the bidder was wrong in informing him of Magro’s alleged bribe request because, as prime minister, it is not his job to intervene in any cases of alleged corruption going on during his administration.

Now here’s the twist. When Daphne Caruana Galizia, in April 2016, exposed Muscat’s chief of staff and star minister Konrad Mizzi for having opened up secret companies in Panama, she did not visit Castille. She risked her finances and, ultimately, her life by publishing the facts informing the whole island including Muscat, his cabinet members and his police commissioner.

This time, Muscat told everyone that there was nothing to worry about. He claimed that Mizzi had already told him about his future Panama plans and that his chief of staff had only done what “any other man in business could do”. All was normal and above the law.

Right-wing autocrats answer to no one- Eddie Aquilina

Today, the prime minister is of the same mind. Abela too holds that, if a citizen discovers any alleged corruption by a minister or government official, the citizen has no business annoying him with it. He should simply “go to the competent authorities”.

The twist is that, up till recently, the only competent authorities were the independent magistrates of inquiry who filled in the vacuum of seven police commissioners who, since 2013, always failed to take clear cases of corruption seriously.

These magisterial inquiries managed to effectively force the hand of the attorney general to charge several people in alleged corruption cases, including the Vitals scam.

Abela went to parliament and fast tracked the passing of Bill 125, curtailing a citizen’s right to call for a magisterial inquiry.

Today, citizens are no longer able to directly request a magistrate to open an inquiry but first have to approach the police to investigate. If the police do not act within six months, citizens can then take their case to a judge, who will decide if an investigation is merited.

Abela’s intervening does not stop here. Income and asset declarations made by the prime minister and his cabinet are no longer being published as Abela is insisting these are covered by cabinet secrecy rules.

Right-wing autocrats answer to no one. They will intervene only to stop you from finding out what they want to hide from you. 

Eddie Aquilina