Three ministers will have to explain under oath how they obtained information which was not in the published conclusions of the Egrant report, a court has ordered.
Finance Minister Edward Scicluna, Economy Minister Chris Cardona and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi are to be summoned to the witness stand in a date to be decided later this month.
The Constitutional Court said it had made the decision "for the best administration of justice."
The matter dates back to last June when the three government ministers appeared to quote from unpublished sections of the magisterial report into the Panama company Egrant Inc.
They had quoted in a separate case: “Since it has been sufficiently proved that declarations of trust exhibited in the records of the inquiry turned out to be false, bearing false signatures, the Commissioner of Police is to start an investigation to determine the person/s responsible for the creation, use and circulation of such false documents.”
Opposition leader Adrian Delia had originally asked for a full copy of the 1,500-page report but this had been turned down by the First Hall, Civil Court in May.
Dr Delia then filed appeal proceedings.
After the filing of the appeal, the citations by the three ministers had come to light, prompting Dr Delia to ask the court to order the three ministers to testify and explain how they could quote from the unpublished part of the Egrant report.
Its appearance in the ministers’ reply furthered strengthened Dr Delia’s claim that his being denied a full copy of the Egrant report effectively amounted to a breach of his fundamental rights to information and protection against political discrimination, the Constitutional Court was told.
These arguments were countered by the Attorney General who, in a reply filed on July 4, argued that it was “unheard of” for someone to be asked to testify about evidence presented in a magisterial inquiry that was, by its nature, confidential.
Moreover, Dr Delia was extraneous to that inquiry and could not abuse of the constitutional case to try to obtain confidential information that fell outside the confines of his constitutional application, the AG argued.
Furthermore, the laws of procedure did not allow, save in exceptional circumstances, for a witness who had not testified at first instance to do so at the appeal stage, the AG continued, adding that the witnesses called for “served no purpose for the current case and would only cause an unnecessary divergence and delay.”
After weighing the arguments put forward by both parties, the Court, presided over by Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi and Mr Justices Giannino Caruana Demajo and Noel Cuschieri, declared on Friday that “for the best administration of justice” Dr Delia’s request was to be upheld.
The Court authorised the summoning of the three ministers as witnesses at a date to be decided upon at the next hearing of the appeal on July 29.
Lawyers Vincent Galea and Andre’ Portelli are assisting the appellant.