A bill to reform the magisterial inquiries will cut down on inquiries “as a tool for persecution” by updating Malta’s “obscene” and “archaic” legal framework on inquiries, Robert Abela told a news conference on Thursday.

The prime minister insisted that the current framework is “not in line with what is expected of a modern EU country”, having first been drawn up some 175 years ago.

The bill’s new measures, which include the requirement to first file a police report before proceeding with a request to the courts with admissible evidence, will ensure that “the rights of people to access justice are preserved, while simultaneously placing greater responsibility on the process,” Abela said.

“We are ensuring that people who face justice will do so while those won are being persecuted unjustly won’t have their lives upended,” he said. “In recent weeks there were people who chose to use inquiries as a tool for persecution, exploiting loopholes in the system,” Abela added, in a pointed reference to a spate of requests submitted by former PN MP Jason Azzopardi over the past months.

Abela and justice minister Jonathan Attard pointed to a litany of shortcomings in the current legal framework throughout the conference.

It is unjust that simply prima facie evidence is enough to kick off an inquiry, they said, and people are suddenly finding themselves the subject of an inquiry, often unbeknownst to them, without any concrete evidence of wrongdoing being presented.

Both Abela and Attard said that the bill is building on a series of recommendations made in recent years, including the Bonello Commission in 2013, the Venice Commission in 2018, and reforms proposed by former PN MP Franco Debono over a decade ago.

‘We should have acted sooner’

Abela brushed aside suggestions that the reform was being rushed through in response to recent events, insisting that the measure was promised in the party’s 2022 electoral manifesto and has been in the works ever since.

“On the contrary, we should have acted sooner, back when the Venice Commission recommended it seven years ago,” he said.

Abela also said that while other pending reforms, such as an almost two-year-old promise to shorten the compilation of evidence stage, also cause injustices because of delays to court proceedings, they pale in comparison to the injustices caused by the current framework for magisterial inquiries.

“Today’s system is causing far greater injustices because countless people who are clearly innocent are being dragged to court.”