Updated 2.06pm with PN statement -
The person who eventually takes up the role of public prosecutor under proposed reforms will be a government appointee, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici has confirmed.
Speaking to the Times of Malta, Dr Bonnici initially appeared reluctant to state this fact outright.
When first asked how the prosecutor would be appointed, the Justice Minister said the Venice Commission, which is a constitutional adviser to the Council of Europe, spoke about the matter in its report, and he would be sticking to what the report said.
Questioned if the Venice Commission report said the prosecutor should be appointed by the government, the Justice Ministry coyly stated that the report had been public for months.
“So that is my answer,” he said.
Pressed again if the prosecutor would be appointed by the government, Dr Bonnici said that point would have been relevant had the Venice Commission mentioned other methods of appointment.
“You have to take a look at the report. It is a structured report. You cannot take this point in isolation. The point is the person occupying the role of public prosecutor should be distinct from the person advising the government,” Dr Bonnici insisted.
You cannot take this point in isolation
Law Commissioner and former PN MP Franco Debono told the Times of Malta that the role would be overshadowed by the fact that the appointment would take place by a government whose exponents are themselves under actual or potential investigations.
Dr Debono said the context from when he first proposed such a split in 2011 had changed.
He said the split itself had been relegated to secondary importance to the much more serious issue of the legitimacy of whoever is appointing them, notwithstanding the integrity or competence of whoever is appointed.
An as yet unpublished report by Greco notes that the criminal justice response to government corruption can too easily be paralysed where political influences come into play. Greco notes that “most, if not all” files against top officials in the executive and other related officials are stuck at an early stage of criminal proceedings.
The Venice Commission’s assessment of Malta’s legal system, which was carried out on the behest of the Council of Europe last year, says the public prosecutor should be guaranteed security of tenure to ensure independence in line with accepted international practice. Changes to the composition of the Attorney General’s office were announced by the Justice Minister in March.
Apart from the Attorney General’s dual role, the Commission had flagged the excessive powers held by the Prime Minister and the mechanism used to appoint members of the judiciary, saying it did not guarantee full independence from the executive.
PN: Confirmation that the prosecutor-general will not be independent
The Nationalist Party said Justice Minister Owen Bonnici's comments confirmed that the prosecutor-general would not be independent.
It said that the prosecutor-general's appointment by the government would go against the spirit of the Venice Commission's recommendations that appointments to national institutions should be truly independent.
This also showed that the government was only reluctantly taking up the Venice Commission's recommendations and did not really want to bring about a change that would allow the institutions to function independently, thus strengthening the rule of law.