Understand first what Joseph Muscat is trying to achieve with his claim that the Maltese state is breaching his fundamental human rights.

Muscat complains that Magistrate Gabriella Vella’s father and brother publicly expressed opinions he disagrees with. One social media post is from 2019 when Repubblika called for street protests after the links between Yorgen Fenech and Muscat became public knowledge. A relative of the magistrate expressed support for the protests. The other social media post came from earlier this year when a court found the VGH hospitals contract was corrupt and struck it down. A relative of the magistrate made a comment which was critical of the government in this case.

All this, says Muscat, breaches his fundamental human right to a fair hearing. Except the magistrate’s job in this case is not to hear him because she’s not sitting in judgment of him. Her job in this case is to gather evidence of a crime, if there is any, and if the evidence suggests he has broken the law to refer the evidence and an order to prosecute him to the institutions that have the job to act on that – the police and the prosecutor.

They don’t get to decide on his guilt or innocence either. That will be the job of another magistrate in open court where Muscat’s right to a fair hearing will force everyone to presume he is innocent, ensure he has equal arms to defend himself from the accusation and for any verdict to be handed down by an impartial judge.

This case is not about any of that because Magistrate Vella hasn’t even finished her inquiry report. Consider what Muscat asked for in an interim-measure application the other day pending a decision by the court on whether his fundamental rights have been breached (which would take several months if not years). He wants the court to order that, pending a decision, the evidence in the VGH scandal case is no longer collected.

He wants an inquiry compiling evidence of crime (and his possible involvement in it) halted while he argues that his right to a fair hearing is breached in a process that has nothing to do with hearing him.

Park for the moment the implicit admission of guilt. Try not to think of what might happen to the evidence that may be used against him if a court orders it is not collected for now. Leave aside for a while the obvious response that anyone who is perfectly aware there is no wrongdoing to be found would hope for an early completion of an inquiry to have their name cleared, rather than seek to halt it and prolong the unnecessary pain.

Let’s also not fall for the pathetic notion that Muscat is some helpless, voiceless, forgotten citizen suffering the oppression of a hostile state and look at Muscat for what he is, independently of any value judgement about his alleged corruption. He is a former prime minister using the courts to prevent competent institutions from investigating his conduct when he was the country’s chief executive.

Let us not fall for the pathetic notion that Joseph Muscat is some helpless, voiceless, forgotten citizen suffering the oppression of a hostile state- Manuel Delia

Fundamental human rights are there to protect powerless individuals from the hegemony of the state. Muscat is using rights that are meant to protect us from the state in order to protect the state from us. Because if he committed crimes connected with the VGH contract, he had done so as a state official, abusing constitutional powers, obstructing justice, unlawfully monetising for personal gain the power he was lawfully given to administer in the public, not his, interest. Human rights are there to protect us from that conduct, not to protect its perpetrators.

His use of the constitutional court is, therefore, immoral and a logical extension of his habit of using institutions, particularly the courts, to serve his interest.

Muscat says that the fact that Vella’s father and brother expressed opinions that are unfavourable to him mean that he cannot get a fair hearing from her.

This is the same Muscat who, as prime minister, anointed to the bench an ex-Labour MP, an advisor who sat on his cabinet meetings, a former Labour Party international secretary, the spouse of a Labour MEP in office, former Labour Party candidates, the Labour speaker’s daughter, two former long-term partners in law offices run by Labour Party deputy leaders, a Labour mayor, the daughter of a former Labour minister and the sister of a Labour minister in office.

By Muscat’s own measure, none of these people could have ever given a fair hearing to people who do not support the Labour Party in matters that may politically affect it and, yet, he appointed them to the bench or promoted them within it.

I’m not criticising Muscat for having inconsistent opinions. God knows I can be guilty of that. The opinions of someone who had the power not just to complain about unfair judges but to appoint them and impose them on the country are frankly secondary.

I use the term ‘unfair’ applying Muscat’s measure that if a relative had expressed in an unconnected context a political opinion, the magistrate is incapable of giving a suspect in a crime a ‘fair hearing’ (whatever that means in the case of an inquiry) in a report she’s writing about the evidence she’s collating.

Was Muscat not worried about the fundamental human rights of people appearing before the ‘unfair’ judges he appointed?

He never assumed it might one day be his turn to be called to justice. His greatest regret now is not having had the time to stuff the bench fast enough to ensure he’s never called to answer for his crimes.