The Attorney General and the State Advocate are trying to get a case started by Repubblika to be held behind closed doors to prevent damning evidence from being heard in open court, the NGOs President Robert Aquilina said on Friday.
He was speaking during the rule of law NGO’s annual general meeting, which saw Aquilina being reconfirmed as president for another term.
However, during his speech, Aquilina said that in a court sitting for the case that the group opened against the state officials for not acting on the recommendation of a magisterial inquiry and prosecuting a number of Pilatus Bank officials.
Aquilina said that yesterday, during a sitting for the case that the NGO opened to request a judicial review of the Attorney General’s decision not to prosecute top Pilatus Bank officials, the Attorney General (AG) and the State Advocate (SA) attempted to “silence” him.
Aquilina said that he had intended to present evidence to the court that the Attorney General, in complicity with the Police Commissioner, “went out of its way to ensure that the criminals of Pilatus Bank get off scot-free.”
However, the AG and SA have gone out of their way to suppress that information from emerging in open court and want proceedings to happen “in the darkness and not in the light of day,” he said.
“We had to sweat blood to stand up to them, to resist their desperate attempt aimed at stopping us from uncovering the truth.”
As a result, the court is expected to rule on whether this testimony is set to be heard behind closed doors on Tuesday.
The AG and SA are “working against the interest of justice, good governance and accountability,” Aquilina continued, saying that in view of the pending court decision he would not be revealing his evidence.
But, he continued, this is far from a sign of weakness.
“We are ready to pay with our own liberty if necessary for the truth to come out in full so that we can show the people how they were betrayed by those who were supposed to protect them,” he said.
“I remind these public officials that they are obliged to serve the honest citizens of our country and not those who deceived the public and shamed their name all over the world.”
The SA and AG, Aquilina continued, have a clear decision between “choosing to put a spoke in the wheels of justice or serving justice as is right”.
They do not, however, have the ability to silence activists, he said.
“I warn you that we are not ready to let anybody deny us our freedom of expression. We enjoy the same rights that are protected by the laws of this country and by international treaties and we are not amenable to giving up these basic rights.”