Justice Minister Jonathan Attard was evasive on the government's stance on a court sentence that recommended the criminalisation of high-level political conflicts of interest. 

Yorgen Fenech lost his bid to have lead police investigator Keith Arnaud removed from the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case on Wednesday, with Judge Lawrence Mintoff tearing into the institutional failures of the case, citing Keith Schembri's involvement in particular. 

The court said Schembri had failed to flag his "fraternal friendship" with Fenech even as he attended confidential briefings about the ongoing murder case.

The sentence discussed the situations in the case which gave rise to conflicts of interest. The court said the situation is worse when it involved high-ranking public officials, such as the prime minister's chief of staff and the police commissioner. 

Legislators, the judge said, should consider classifying such behaviour as "most serious criminal offences subject to harsh punishment". 

But when asked about the government's stance on this statement and whether there are plans to implement such legislation, Attard could only say that the government analyses all judgments made by the courts. 

He added that it is ultimately up to parliament to decide which laws to introduce or not. 

"The court pronounces itself constantly and not only in the sector you are mentioning but in various other sectors as well," Attard said on Thursday. 

"I assure everyone that we analyse all of the court’s judgments, so that we can make decisions. And at the end of the day, it is the legislator, it is parliament that decides what kind of laws should be introduced in our country’s legal books."

Fenech filed the legal proceedings to have Arnaud taken off the case because he alleged that the investigator was feeding Schembri information about the case. 

Fenech, who stands accused of complicity in the 2017 murder of Caruana Galizia, has alleged that Schembri was the true mastermind of that crime.