Updated 7.10pm with PN reaction below

Prime Minister Robert Abela has ruled out a public inquiry into a Ħamrun house collapse which killed a mother-of-two last year.  

Fielding questions from reporters on Monday, Abela said the country's institutions were working well and argued that an inquiry into Miriam Pace's death in March 2020 could hurt separate legal proceedings. 

"The institutions are functioning and one should not transfer their competence to a public inquiry. There is also the major risk that if we are to have a parallel investigation the accused could claim that their case is being prejudiced. I want to safeguard the integrity of the judicial process," Abela said.

He also pointed out that the magisterial inquiry into the Ħamrun case was completed in six weeks and four people had been arraigned. Proceedings related to this case proceeded according to regulations within the institutions, he said.

The government had also commissioned an expert report on reforming the industry and that has been tabled in parliament. The government was also setting up a new regulatory authority. 

“I am saying this, precisely because I want justice to be served in this case,” Abela said. 

Abela's arguments against setting up a public inquiry are similar to arguments which his predecessor Joseph Muscat had made against setting up a public inquiry into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. 

Muscat had eventually established an inquiry in that case following pressure from the Council of Europe to do so. 

Earlier on Monday, the bereaved relatives of deceased Miriam Pace issued a statement renewing their calls for an inquiry to look into whether the state had failed to prevent her death.  

Carmel and Miriam Pace.

Pace, a 54 mother-of-two, was buried alive beneath the rubble of her own home when it caved in above her on March 2 last year. Four people involved in a construction project next door to the Pace family home, including two architects, have been accused with involuntarily killing her. 

The Pace family has repeatedly called for a public inquiry into the incident, which prompted Abela to appoint the expert panel to look into ways in which the construction sector needed to be reformed to avoid such incidents.

Abela had initially declined to publish that report, saying its recommendations had already been incorporated into a new bill which parliament would be passing into law. That decision was slammed by the Pace family and other victims of previous construction site collapses.

On Monday, the Pace family welcomed the decision to publish the report as a “step forward” and noted that it confirmed that institutions had “flagrantly failed” to safeguard Pace’s life.

Legal representative of the Pace family said that it wanted a parliamentary motion calling for a public inquiry into Miriam Pace’s death should be debated as soon as possible, to allow the family to “learn of the reasons why calls for a public inquiry are being ignored”.

PN slams Abela's decision

The Nationalist Party slammed the decision by the prime minister not to hold an inquiry.

The decision was criticised in parliament by former opposition leader Adrian Delia and MPs Claudio Grech and David Thake. 

Delia said that while the prime minister had said he did not want judicial proceeding to be prejudiced, holding an inquiry was different from the judicial proceedings.

The proceedings were specifically about the Hamrun case, how it happened and who was responsible. But the public inquiry was needed to establish whether the government and public agencies could have prevented this tragedy.

The prime minister did not want the whole truth to emerge and was playing judge and jury, Delia said.