A commemoration event was held on Tuesday, exactly one year to the day of when Miriam Pace was buried underneath the rubble of her own home after a construction accident.
The commemoration, organised by NGO Repubblika, took place at 2.30pm, marking the hour during which the incident took place.
Protesters gathered in silence as they placed a photograph of Pace on the site of the former family home.
“We gathered here today to remember Miriam Pace, right next to the debris where she was killed,” Repubblika’s president Robert Aquilina said.
Her death, he said, occurred during a “mad rush to fill up someone’s bank account while others choke on concrete.
“Miriam was killed so that our country can continue to be filled up with monuments to greed and mediocrity,” he added.
Aquilina added that while everyone is paying the price for a frenzy of construction activity, Pace paid the highest price.
“We are all responsible for Miriam’s death whenever we chose to adore money, even if it comes from dishonest means,” he said.
Repubblika president-elect Alessandra Dee Crespo read out a post by Pace's widower Carmel commemorating the loss of his wife.
Four people have so far been charged with Pace's involuntary homicide - the project’s architect, the site technical officer, the excavation contractor and the construction worker. The hearing is set to be continued this month.
The accused are pleading not guilty.
On February 25, the court heard how the police had received seven reports of incidents involving contractor Ludvic Dimech. The reports were filed between October 2008 and December 2019.
In the same hearing, the head of the building and construction agency (BCA) had also stated that the agency did not blacklist contractors.
In an interview with Times of Malta, widower Carmel Pace had recalled how Miriam had been anxious about the ongoing works and expressed frustration over the lack of a public inquiry into the incident.
Prime minister Robert Abela had defended his decision not to launch an inquiry, arguing that the family’s request may prejudice the judicial process.
In a Facebook post commemorating Pace, NGO Moviment Graffitti slammed the government for “pushing forward a spineless construction reform bill”.
Graffitti also referred to the Malta Developers’ Association (MDA) lobbying efforts to have its members sit on the board of the BCA, arguing that this was “a gift given to developers”.