Repubblika president Robert Aquilina has taken a battle to obtain the names of people nominated to the FIAU board back in 2013 to the law courts.

Aquilina is arguing that he cannot get a fair hearing before a tribunal that hears appeals of data protection commissioner decisions, given that its chair offered to resign when a general election was announced.

The Repubblika president is seeking a list of names nominated to the FIAU by the police commissioner at the time, Lawrence Cutajar, and which ultimately ended with Silvio Valletta being appointed to the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit board.

He had filed a Freedom of Information request to that effect and Data Protection Commissioner Ian Deguara had decided that the documents could be supplied, but that the names of nominees who were not selected were to be deleted, claiming this was personal data in terms of the law.

Aquilina had appealed that decision. The chair of the appeals tribunal, Anna Mallia, had accepted a request for recusal, leading to the appointment of another lawyer, Noel Camilleri, as substitute chairman.

Robert Aquilina outside the Valletta law courts. Photo: Jonathan Borg

But proceedings were stalled when Camilleri declared earlier this year that he was handing in his resignation as, he said, was the practice when general elections were held.

In a case filed before the first hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional capacity this week, Aquilina is arguing that Camilleri’s offer shows that he cannot get a fair hearing before the tribunal.

In terms of law, the tribunal is an ostensibly independent body with members that enjoy security of tenure and cannot be removed except for incapacity or proven bad behaviour.

The fact that the chairman of this supposedly independent tribunal had said he was offering to resign because of the holding of a general election indicated a lack of independence from the government and therefore, Aquilina said, it also denied him the right to a fair hearing and prejudiced his efforts to ensure there was freedom of information.

Furthermore, Aquilina observed, the chairman was showing a serious lack of impartiality, also evidenced by Facebook comments he had written and which were reported by Lovin Malta in July 2022.

“We will probably have to wait a long, long time until they admit that they don’t have a vision like you did, Dr Muscat,” Camilleri was quoted as writing. “However, your vision leaves us breathless.”

Aquilina’s FOI battle seeks to establish why the government had chosen to appoint Valletta to the sensitive FIAU post, rather than other candidates.

Valletta, who was an assistant police commissioner at the time, had ties to people in politics – he was married to then minister Justyne Caruana – and was subsequently exposed as having gone on holiday with the man accused of complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Yorgen Fenech.

Valletta was originally the police officer tasked with leading the Caruana Galizia investigation. He was taken off that case after the Caruana Galizia family successfully challenged that appointment in court.

In his legal claim, filed against the State Advocate, Data Protection Commissioner Ian Deguara, Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa and Paul Zahra as permanent secretary of the Finance Ministry, Aquilina is asking the court to:

• Declare a violation of his right to a fair hearing by an impartial tribunal in terms of local and European law;
• Declare a violation of his right to information, having been seeking his information for almost three years;  
• Order the authorities to fully supply the information he requested back in 2020.

Lawyer Therese Cmodini Cachia signed the application.

Aquilina informed the appeals tribunal of the case at a hearing held on Tuesday afternoon, and asked it to postpone proceedings pending the outcome of that case.