Justice Minister Owen Bonnici could not have served as legal counsel to the Prime Minister and his wife in his personal capacity as this would be in breach of code of ethics, Chamber of Advocates president George Hyzler said.
“Dr Bonnici is not a practising lawyer, but a minister. Lawyers I’ve spoken to were very surprised by the Attorney General’s declaration because it’s very strange since Dr Bonnici is not the Prime Minister’s lawyer,” Dr Hyzler said.
The minister, the Chamber president said, could not have acted as a lawyer in his personal capacity as this would be in breach of the ministers’ code of ethics.
The Attorney General, Peter Grech, said on Tuesday that the Justice Minister served as legal counsel to the Prime Minister and his wife when the Egrant inquiry report was published, citing this as the reason why Dr Bonnici was handed an electronic copy of the report.
According to Dr Grech, the minister called him personally to ask for a copy of the inquiry report which he then sent via e-mail.
Is the minister aware he is in breach of the code of ethics
The information emerged during constitutional proceedings filed by the Opposition leader challenging the Attorney General’s decision to deny him a copy of the full report.
When contacted, Dr Hyzler, who the government and Opposition recently agreed to have serve as Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, said that Dr Grech’s declaration had immediately raised eyebrows among lawyers, who could not understand why he was involved in the matter in the first place.
Read: Egrant inquiry finds falsified signatures, differing testimonies and no proof
The code of ethics precludes ministers from carrying on with their profession when occupying a Cabinet post.
“Once appointed, a minister is expected not to continue with his private work and to dedicate all his time for governmental issues,” the code reads. Ministers can be granted a waiver from the code if the Prime Minister and his ministers decide this is “in the national interest”.
Questions sent to the Office of the Prime Minister on whether Dr Bonnici was granted such a waiver were not forthcoming by the time of writing.
Nor were replies to questions on what, in this particular instance, was deemed as national interest in order to justify such a decision.
Meanwhile, questions sent to the Justice Minister were also left unanswered.
Times of Malta asked Dr Bonnici whether he served as legal counsel as the Justice Minister or in his personal capacity as a lawyer and whether he was aware he was in breach of the code of ethics.
Dr Bonnici was also asked whether he agreed with the Prime Minister’s view that the full report should be published, something that his legal team has advised against, and if he had requested the copy to be sent electronically or if this was a decision taken solely by the AG.
claire.caruana@timesofmalta.com