Top EU and other European bodies have been roped in to support calls for accountability after the Attorney General fudged criminal charges against lawyers representing Yorgen Fenech.
In a statement, the Daphne Caruana Galizia foundation said it had written to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Commission to support calls for accountability.
The foundation was reacting to news that Fenech’s lawyers were on Monday cleared of attempting to bribe a Times of Malta journalist after the magistrate said the Attorney General had not indicated the relevant type of bribery.
Judgment was delivered against lawyers Gianluca Caruana Curran and Charles Mercieca in proceedings that stemmed from an attempt to hand over hundreds of euros to senior journalist Ivan Martin at the end of a meeting at their Valletta office in November 2020. Martin rejected the offer and immediately reported it.
When delivering judgment, the court, presided over by Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras, observed that although the two lawyers had been charged with active bribery and the compilation of evidence concerned that offence, the Attorney General had indicated another provision of law in its note for a referral.
For this reason, and without venturing into the merits of the case, the magistrate said she had no choice but to acquit the two lawyers.
“The judgement of acquittal delivered last Monday, in the case triggered by Ivan Martin’s police report that two lawyers attempted to bribe him, continues to highlight the Maltese state’s failure to protect journalists and to enable public interest journalism, despite this failure being extensively documented in the report of the public inquiry published almost a year ago, on 29 July 2021,” the Daphne foundation said.
It added that, in an environment where impunity already endangers journalists and journalism, the failure, in this case, has further undermined the expectation that journalists can rely on the protection of the legal system.
“We now expect the Maltese state to set up an independent inquiry into the matter and to ensure there is full accountability. The public deserves to have faith in the state’s ability and willingness to successfully prosecute corruption and to ensure there are consequences for the failure of state institutions and officials to properly fulfil their duty.”