The magisterial inquiry triggered by a police report of NGO Repubblika into the death of a dozen migrants left astray at sea and a separate incident involving another group of rescued migrants should have been relatively straightforward.
The inquiring magistrate simply had to establish whether the incidents occurred within the jurisdiction of Maltese courts and whether the events amounted to an attempted wilful homicide, wilful homicide, or involuntary homicide.
That high-profile figures were involved – the prime minister and army chief – made it all the more reason to have a focused, no-frills magisterial inquiry. Instead, Magistrate Joe Mifsud delivered 419-page report that tends towards reportage and commentary in places.
The report included the reproduction of a recommendation by the EU’s Council of Ministers on the legal status of NGOs, a poem titled Walk in My Shoes, and reference to a speech by the president – on abortion – in which he urged the country to keep respecting life from its conception to the last breath.
The magistrate and appointed experts also “reflected on the question” of whether the migrants’ boats would be expected, given the size of the motor and amount of fuel, to make it from Libya to Italy. The report comments that little is said about those who put migrants in the water “in a voyage of hope” in an inadequate seacraft, with insufficient fuel and without food or water.
The magistrate could not understand why neither Alarm Phone nor those who filed the police report did not consider this matter.
The report also gives statistics on the number of migrants rescued by the army over the past 15 years and recommends reinstating criminal defamation, which was revoked from Maltese criminal law in 2018.
All this appears irrelevant to the task at hand. Such material would have enriched a book about the tragedy of these boat people and how their fate has become embroiled in a legal, diplomatic and media controversy. But it goes beyond what is legally required of a magisterial inquiry, whose objective is to gather evidence that might support criminal responsibility.
The defining sentence regarding evidence of criminal responsibility is found on page 398: “In the circumstances of this case the inquiring magistrate is convinced that everything possible was done to ensure that lives could be saved as fast as possible.”
The lead-up to that point is scattered amid much information irrelevant to the task, so that it is not easy to discern the logical progression to that conclusion. This is not to question the conclusion – Times of Malta has no stance on that – but no magisterial report should leave the reader with a sense of perplexity rather than clarity.
Repubblika was right to raise questions, including how the testimonies and evidence recommended to be included in the inquiry could have been gathered in such a short time.
In another questionable decision, the report was sent to two ministers. Magisterial inquiries are supposed to be secret in that they preserve and describe any evidence about an alleged or actual crime in a way that could then be used in an eventual trial if it gets to that. The report is then sent to the Attorney General and, if an order to arraign is given, also to the police commissioner.