Opinion: Fixing Joseph Muscat’s problem

Joseph Muscat has a problem. The institutions weren’t supposed to act against him. He made sure of that by exploiting Malta’s weaknesses systematically and deliberately the moment he took power.

He appointed five police commissioners under Labour that protected the government instead of the public. 

The parliamentary ombudsman and the auditor general were undermined, and the Permanent Commission Against Corruption hasn’t produced any results in its thirty-year existence.

Those few enforcement bodies that fought to maintain a semblance of impartiality, like the FIAU, were left deliberately understaffed, starved of resources at a time when they should have been investigating cases of financial corruption. 

The police did little investigating, even when reports landed in their laps, and the attorney general declined to prosecute.

The game was fixed but the disgraced former prime minister does have one vulnerability. He failed to fully compromise the judiciary. Robert Abela’s new legislation on magisterial inquiries is fixing this for him. 

It’s no surprise Abela is rushing it through parliament faster than the Japanese bullet train  — the same parliament that hasn’t implemented a single recommendation from the public inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination since its report was tabled nearly four years ago.

I guess we all have our priorities, and saving Joseph Muscat’s arse is Robert Abela’s.

Under Abela’s new magisterial inquiry legislation, it will be up to citizens to play Sherlock Holmes by pulling together court-admissible evidence which they will then have to take to the police — the same police who failed to investigate the Panama Papers despite being handed damning evidence by the FIAU.

If by some fluke the police take action, they’ll have to hand a report to the attorney general — the same attorney general who botched prosecutions and ignored magisterial orders to act — who will then decide whether or not to prosecute.

If the police don’t do anything for six months, the concerned citizen can then finally go to a judge to request an inquiry.

What if things get really bad and both the police and attorney general decide to prosecute? Abela’s new law will ensure the suspect is told they’re under investigation, and the evidence the police have against them. 

The only thing this law isn’t doing is giving the suspect a broom and a rug to hide the dirt under.

That should cover the big dogs, but what about the enablers?

Abela also wants immunity for public officials so they can’t be “terrorised” or held accountable for acts like signing contracts linked to corruption. ‘Just following orders’ hasn’t been an acceptable defence since the Nuremberg trials, but why should an official in Malta be expected to uphold the public interest when it clashes with their own?

I bet Robert Abela is kicking himself for not thinking of this sooner.

If this new law were in place, then Joseph Muscat and friends would never have been charged over Vitals, and Yorgen Fenech, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi would never have been charged over 17 Black and Electrogas. 

Things have gotten better in Malta since Daphne Caruana Galizia was brutally murdered — better for the criminals and worse for everyone else.

The official Opposition is just as useless as it was in Joseph Muscat’s era, ineffective and absent, but collecting their salaries.

The government is targeting the media again, with Robert Abela attacking The Shift and Caroline Muscat in exactly the same way Joseph Muscat singled out Daphne Caruana Galizia. Has anyone raised their voice in protest? Heads hid below the parapet when Daphne was targeted. Why would cowards act differently now?

And what of the citizens?

People took to the streets in surprising numbers in 2019, night after night, until Muscat was driven from power. And then it all fizzled out. The disgraced former prime minister handed power to his chosen successor and embarked on a lucrative ‘consulting’ career.

When the new legislation on magisterial inquiries is rammed through, those who robbed the country blind will be untouchable.

The last time I checked, Labour is still ahead in the polls and would win if an election were held today. Are you surprised? I’m not.

Muscat called a snap election in 2017 in the wake of the Panama Papers and the post-Egrant midnight run from Pilatus Bank. Corruption was on the ballot and the people gave him an even larger majority than he won in 2013.

I got the usual flak when I blamed amoral familism for Malta’s plight in my recent book A Sunny Place for Shady People. I defy those critics to prove me wrong.

Six years on the island convinced me that Malta reached its current depth of corruption because the majority wants it that way.

You’ve made your bed. Now you’ll have to wallow in it.

A Sunny Place for Shady People is available from Midsea Books in Malta.