Opposition leader Bernard Grech on Saturday pledged to continue pursuing all possible legal avenues to battle the "democratic deficit" caused by the government's takeover of the national television station.

He said it was evident that state control of the Public Broadcasting Services was worsening and the voice of the Nationalist Party in opposition was being muzzled.

“What are we doing about it? The party is filing all protests with the Broadcasting Authority which are mostly being decided in our favour. We opened a court case and the court confirmed that PBS breached our fundamental rights.

"PN will take all action possible because we cannot allow that the country continues with this democratic deficit,” he said in a telephone interview on NET FM on Saturday.

He explained how the national television station this week not only ignored his activities after having ignored the fact that Malta’s position on the corruption index had worsened, but also went ahead with a programme when it knew that a PN representative could not attend.

“We will remain militant and will continue looking into all our legal options to ensure that everyone is heard including the minority of 123,000 people who voted for the PN,” he said.

The situation at PBS is very worrying because it is one of the institutions which [Prime Minister] Robert Abela’s government had taken under its control,” he added.

'Nobody has apologised for COVID wage supplement errors'

Grech also spoke about the 1,500 people who were asked to return their COVID-19 wage supplement after being told that a mistake had been committed.

He said that while mistakes do happen, he was "morally convinced" that the mistake was not a genuine one as it was too much of a coincidence that these people were given cheques prior to the election and now being told to refund the money a few months later.  

He said he knew of someone who was asked to refund the money and who will be getting married in a few weeks.

“This is not acceptable and people were betrayed. No one in government has taken responsibility or apologised. This is because everyone feels as if they can do anything because there are no consequences,” Grech said, as he appealed to the independent media to investigate this.

Grech also spoke about the Attorney General, calling on Justice Minister Jonathan Attard to take immediate action and dismiss the AG as her position is no longer tenable. Otherwise, the government will remain an accomplice of many crimes, he said.

Asked about the carnival weekend, Grech said the promised carnival village had failed to materialise like other projects that had remained on plan such as the new mental health hospital, the mother and child hospital, among others.

He said the party had a big week ahead, with a case against PBS being decided on Monday and the Vitals case on Friday.