The Nationalist Party has called on Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg to immediately explain what contacts she had and what information she handed to the prime minister and the justice minister related to the magisterial inquiry into the construction site death of Jean Paul Sofia.

Robert Abela on Monday said he would have expected the inquiring magistrate to work “night and day” to conclude her work, given the sensitivity of the case. Instead, the magistrate had left Sofia’s family in limbo, and asked for an extension. 

As a consequence, Abela said, he was appointing a public inquiry. 

The shadow minister for justice, Karol Aquilina, said the Nationalist Party considered it unacceptable that information about a magisterial inquiry that was held by the attorney general ended up in the hands of Robert Abela and Jonathan Attard, who used it for political purposes. This was a blatant abuse of power and a betrayal of the duties which the attorney general had to the people.  

The information from the attorney general had been used by Robert Abela and Jonathan Attard to deceive the people after they had spent months vigorously resisting calls for a public inquiry into Sofia's death. 

Aquilina said failure by Buttigieg to explain her contacts with the prime minister and the justice minister would be further confirmation that she was being controlled by Robert Abela and Jonathan Attard  in clear breach of her constitutional obligation to be independent and not to be subject to anybody's control or direction.