The Opposition Leader’s request for a full copy of the Egrant inquiry report will be definitively decided upon next month, a court said on Monday after final oral submissions were made.
The report was drawn up by Magistrate (now Mr Justice) Aaron Bugeja after claims by journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that the prime minister's wife was the ultimate beneficiary of funds from a secret Panama company called Egrant. No evidence to back the claims was found. The Prime Minister and Mrs Muscat strongly denied the claims.
Attorney General Peter Grech argued that a full copy of the report had been handed to the Prime Minister but not to the Labour Party.
The main conclusions were published online, but because of the delicate constitutional nature of the inquiry it had been decided to give a copy to the prime minister, who had called the inquiry, Dr Grech said. He stressed that there was no obligation to publish the full 1500-page report online.
“It wasn’t the case that the document was passed on to the Labour Party. The document was passed on to the prime minister… (political) parties are not involved in this. The discussion should not be brought down to that level,” argued Dr Grech.
However, Adrian Delia’s lawyer, Vincent Galea, countered that Kurt Farrugia, the PM’s then spokesman, lawyer Pawlu Lia and Justice Minister Owen Bonnici had all received a copy, the latter apparently “by a blank email from the AG.”
Subsequently, it had also emerged that three other ministers, namely Edward Scicluna, Konrad Mizzi and Chris Cardona also had access to the full report, which was drawn up by then-magistrate Aaron Bugeja.
Dr Galea observed that the argument put forward by the AG was that the full copy should be withheld so as to preserve the evidence that was collected.
“So all those persons who had a copy would preserve that evidence, but Adrian Delia would not,” argued Dr Galea.
Whilst the AG argued that the publication issue was one of public interest, he refused to hand a copy to the public and the Opposition Leader, argued Dr Galea.
“Again, according to the AG's argument, if he were to hand a copy of the report to the PN leader, the latter would use it for political purposes, but passing it on to PL officials was okay,” Dr Delia’s lawyer went on, pointing out that the Opposition could not fulfil its role as watchdog without access to this document.
“How can I tell if someone has done something wrong if you don’t want to give me access to the information required?”
The Court presided over by Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi and Mr Justices Giannino Caruana Demajo and Anthony Ellul, adjourned the case for final judgment to December 16.
Lawyer Victoria Buttigieg also assisted the AG.