Updated 9pm with PL statement backing the minister.
Opposition leader Bernard Grech on Monday presented a motion of no confidence in Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri after a damning report by the Ombudsman on the state of the prisons while Alex Dalli was director.
Grech moved the motion after Speaker Anglu Farrugia rejected an Opposition call for an immediate debate on the report which had found that inmates were subjected to pervasive intimidation and fear while retired colonel Alex Dalli was director of prisons between 2018 and 2021.
The Ombudsman had described how the Corradino Correctional Facility (CCF) was plagued by systematic maladministration and degrading treatment of prisoners.
Grech told the House that the report needed to be debated urgently since the Ombudsman had clearly concluded that while Dalli was director, systematic maladministration had led to the fundamental human rights of inmates being breached. Shockingly, the Ombudsman said he was morally convinced of a link between this maladministration and a number of deaths and suicides during this period.
Furthermore, Grech said, minister Byron Camilleri had defended and supported Dalli at the time, and once the report was published, he had again confirmed his support and confidence.
Government whip Naomi Cachia said the subject matter did not fall within the criteria of being definite and urgent in terms of Standing Orders and holding an immediate debate was therefore not required.
Grech replied that it seemed that for the government, maladministration which caused deaths and breached human rights was not something urgent.
The Speaker briefly suspended the sitting and later delivered a ruling rejecting the call for urgent debate.
Grech then presented the motion of no confidence in the minister. It will be debated in the future.
Labour backs Camilleri
The Labour Party in a statement later backed Byron Camilleri and heaped praise on him for reforms in the disciplined services.
It said the no-confidence motion was yet another move by the PN and its 'extreme branch' to remove all those who disagreed with them.
Camilleri was responsible for major reforms that transformed the police force, introduced better conditions for disciplined forces and improved the lot for victims of crime, the PL said.
Camilleri had not waited for the Ombudsman's report before 'taking the decisions he needed to take' at the prisons. He started acting on the recommendations of an inquiry board even during the three years it took for the Ombudsman's report to be written.
Those decisions introduced new measures, resources and investment to improve rehabilitation and ensure that the prisons did not return to the state they were under the PN government when, the PL said, it was run by the prisoners and was a market for drug traffickers.