There is no discussion as to whether Joseph Muscat is corrupt. He directed one of the most morally bankrupt cabinets in Maltese history into approving spectacularly corrupt deals. He corrupted institutions and dismantled the checks and balances that were designed to facilitate good governance.
Worst of all, under his watch, Castille engineered a culture of impunity that spread to all state institutions, according to the public inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
These institutions included the police, leading to a collapse in the rule of law and the third murder under the patronage of Malta’s Labour Party.
That state takeover is in full force today. When the state broadcaster almost completely buries the story of how Muscat’s administration bound Malta to a fraudulent, multi-billion euro plot that jeopardised our national healthcare, for which nobody has yet shouldered responsibility, then alarm bells continue to sound.
Labour’s failed privatisation is a colossal scandal exacerbated by the government’s ability to keep getting away with murder.
Irregularities were clear from day one, back in 2015. The deal had barely seen the light of day when Caruana Galizia had already flagged it. But nothing happened, even after the Panama Papers broke and implicated Vitals’ protagonists.
Any scrutiny of the deal that took place happened despite Labour’s best efforts to conceal its actions. It took a privately instigated court case to nullify the contract on the basis of fraud, eight years later.
As more time passes, impunity only continues to fester. The Vitals-Steward scandal is another reminder that the issues flagged in the public inquiry are all still pending. Having the fraudulent contract annulled is only the start. Those responsible must be made to answer, and we already know their names.
The Labour government has done absolutely nothing to remedy the rule of law. Since the public inquiry was published, any recommendations made to it were watered down and cosmeticised into a fake plan, whose implementation was never meant to have any practical effect whatsoever.
The way forward has always been clear: effectively and efficiently prosecute those responsible for the most egregious cases of corruption: the rampant money laundering crimes of Pilatus Bank, the corruption in Electrogas, the assassination of Caruana Galizia, the Vitals-Steward fraud.
Instead, the law continues to be distorted and used only against common criminals and riff-raff in a perverse attempt at racking up prosecution numbers. Tax-evading butchers and fortune tellers are the scapegoats while the real criminals parade around with their ill-gotten gains, too big for the law.
Tax-evading butchers and fortune tellers are the scapegoats while the real criminals parade around with their ill-gotten gains, too big for the law- David Casa
In the meantime, hundreds of millions of Maltese taxpayer money is missing and nobody will answer for it. But we do know who must answer, because in every dodgy deal made under the Muscat administration, the same names keep coming up, every single time.
Muscat can say, like every other scoundrel before him, that everything he did was in the national interest.
That is not for him to decide. The people of Malta and Gozo deserve to have prompt and effective justice. That justice can only be guaranteed by strong independent institutions, for which Malta is still left wanting.
The European Parliament once gave the Maltese government the benefit of the doubt. No longer. In October, the vast majority voted in favour of a resolution slamming the Maltese government for regressing, rather than making any noticeable progress on the rule of law.
It completely rejects the smokescreen that the Labour government has opted for instead, chasing small-time criminals with a shotgun approach to bump up prosecution statistics despite failing to secure any convictions against corruption or to fight it in any meaningful way.
An abysmal report of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) gave the Maltese government until the end of the month to indicate what it will do to remedy its sheer neglect for the prosecution of high-level corruption. Robert Abela will have nothing to present, other than that citizens’ lives are being made more and more difficult, all in the name of not prosecuting the rampant corruption of Muscat’s administration.
Years after the fact, Labour shows no remorse for throwing citizens under the bus every time. Even when it should be clear for them that none of the corruption committed by its most prominent proponents has gone unnoticed.
Instead, Abela banks on the hope that it will forever go unpunished.
The prime minister has failed to deliver on any promises concerning the rule of law. Any more plans or road maps toward strengthening the institutions will fail at convincing anyone to afford Labour more time to waste.
Nobody will tolerate any more fake reforms and empty promises on the rule of law. There is only one metric that will convince anyone.
The fundamental gauge on Malta’s rule of law is the prosecution of Muscat and each one of his accomplices.
David Casa is a Nationalist MEP.