Cabinet ministers, including, of course, the prime minister, are bound by their code of ethics to “act and behave according to standards of the highest level both on a personal basis and in the performance of their constitutional duties”.
Robert Abela should, therefore, waste no more time in declaring he would abstain from having any say whatsoever in any cabinet decision on whether to grant a presidential pardon that could be detrimental to former clients of his as a lawyer.
He should also instruct – and declare so publicly – those around him and people occupying high office in institutions that could somehow be linked to such a matter, be they the president, the chief justice, the attorney general, the state advocate, the commissioner of police etc., not to communicate to him any information or details of the case.
A joint investigation by Times of Malta and Malta Today found that two brothers, believed by the police to head a dangerous organised crime group, were identified as part of the conspiracy that supplied the bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Vincent Muscat, known as il-Koħħu, one of the three men accused of murdering the journalist, is known to have told investigators that one of the brothers and another gang member had supplied the explosive device.
Abela was legal adviser to the brothers between 2012 and 2016, before the murder. When confronted about this, he declared that the fact that he personally represented the brothers was no secret but insisted this would not impair his judgement should a request for a presidential pardon land on his desk.
“The fact that someone was my client in the past will certainly not work in their favour when it comes to important decisions I have to take.
“The oath I took back in January holds me back from doing that. Even more so, my conscience would not allow it,” he said.
What his conscience allows or not is something between Abela and his conscience, but one is justified in questioning the rest of that declaration.
The rule of law has been weakened to such an extent over the past few years that, rather than law and justice, it is delinquents and crooks that often prevail. This prompts serious doubts about whether cover-ups are taking place across the board. Confidence in public institutions including, regretfully, the Office of the Prime Minister itself, has been at a low ebb.
It is evident that exposing the suppliers of the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia could open a can of worms and have serious ripple effects on, as yet, unknown other players in the assassination plot.
Thus, the input and influence the prime minister can exercise in granting or denying a presidential pardon could be crucial to unlocking what very much remains a mystery as to who really wanted Caruana Galizia eliminated.
Therefore, it is worth highlighting a point made by a superior court judge when the journalist’s family asked for a senior police officer to be pulled out of the murder investigation as he had a conflict of interest, also because he happened to be the husband of a cabinet minister, who since resigned.
The judge agreed that the circumstances surrounding the former senior police officer would naturally give rise to legitimate doubts as to how effective the murder investigation would be.
Similarly, the circumstances Abela finds himself in can only lead to serious doubts among the public – whatever he says and whatever his conscience may dictate – about whether he will act according to the highest standards.
Those doubts can only be allayed by stepping back, not appeals to conscience.