Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà is facing mounting criticism for reportedly relying on an evidence-gathering exercise led by a magistrate into the hospitals’ deal rather than conducting a comprehensive investigation on Joseph Muscat.
Times of Malta exposed last Sunday how Muscat received €60,000 from a Swiss company that in turn received millions from Steward Health Care, the health provider running the St Luke’s, Karin Grech and Gozo hospitals.
The circumstances surrounding the payments are being examined as part of a magisterial inquiry that is limited to the hospitals deal, rather than as part of a wide-ranging probe by the police into all of Muscat’s activities and deals during his time as prime minister.
Opposition leader Bernard Grech and rule of law NGO Repubblika have both called for separate police investigations into Muscat.
The approach by the police of relying on magisterial inquiries instead of conducting their own parallel investigations was thoroughly criticised by the public inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination.
Inquiry versus investigation
The public inquiry found the police failed to carry out independent investigations into many of the corruption stories pursued by the journalist, particularly on the Panama Papers.
“A magistrate cannot assume the functions of the police,” Judge Abigail Lofaro said during testimony by former economic crimes unit chief Ian Abdilla about the reliance on magisterial inquiries.
The police are also empowered to bring charges against a person, even prior to the conclusion of a magisterial inquiry.
Abdilla was roundly criticised by the three-judge panel for kicking the can to magistrates, instead of carrying out parallel police investigations into corruption. The former economic crimes unit chief, who held the rank of assistant commissioner, was suspended by Gafà in August over the public inquiry’s scathing criticism about police inaction into allegations of government.
Straight from the magistrate’s mouth…
Back in 2008, Marse-Ann Farrugia, then a judicial assistant to the chief justice, and now a magistrate, had explained how the main purpose of a magisterial inquiry is not to investigate an offence for the purpose of identifying an offender.
Farrugia said in a letter penned in Times of Malta that inquiries are designed to ensure the preservation of any material evidence that will eventually be produced in court in the case of a prosecution.
“The investigation of offences is, and remains, the responsibility of the police. Magistrates do not, and have never had, the resources to investigate all the offences to which ‘in genere’ inquiries refer,” Farrugia had written.
During a recent visit to Malta, European chief prosecutor Laura Kövesi noted that the main difficulty is understanding which institution is responsible for detecting crime.
“It was a little bit difficult for us to understand who is responsible as institutions kept referring to each other. We understand that Malta is a small country, but this is no excuse,” Kövesi said of her visit.
In his first press conference following his appointment as commissioner in June 2020, Gafà gave a “100 per cent guarantee” corruption allegations will be investigated, irrelevant of who might be involved.