Human Rights Commissioner exposes Robert Abela’s lies

The first thing the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović should know about Robert Abela is that he’s a liar and that the ease with which he lies is mind-blowing.

Thinking his correspondence with the Commissioner would remain confidential, Abela wrote her a letter littered with lies. He thought he would impress her.  He was convinced his cocky letter would shut her up.

Instead, Commissioner Mijatović saw right through him. In a masterstroke, she pulled the rug out from under his feet and published their correspondence in full.  Without comment, Mijatović revealed the pile of lies Abela tried to shove down her throat.

“Government immediately (after Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination) undertook broad and inclusive consultations to ensure a swift and timely implementation of the public inquiry recommendations,” Abela told the Council of Europe.

There was no consultation, let alone “broad and inclusive”.  And there certainly was no “swift and timely implementation” of the recommendations.  None of the recommendations has been implemented 14 months after the report’s publication.

Abela attempted to convince the Commissioner that his meetings with Caruana Galizia’s family, the Institute of Maltese Journalists (IGM) and members of international organisations constituted “broad and inclusive consultation”.

He bluffed that those “consultations” led to three draft Bills being presented to the House of Representatives in January, “which have since been publicly accessible”.  With shameless deceit Abela wrote, “Meanwhile, since then, the government remained available to listen and consider any feedback from any party”.

Abela thinks that what happens in Malta is only known to those living on this island. He thought the Commissioner would simply swallow his brazen falsehoods.

His government, his party and his ONE-PBS media conglomerate have spent the last months discrediting and attacking all those who wanted to provide feedback to his government.  His home affairs minister attacked civil society organisation Repubblika, calling it “extremist”.

Prominent voices fighting for the basic right to freedom of expression have been mercilessly hounded by some of his MPs and his party’s organised army of trolls.

Labour’s bulldog, Karl Stagno Navarra, has identified journalists on his Pjazza television programme for public flogging and relentless abuse by his loyal audience. MEP Alex Agius Saliba, MP Andy Ellul and Karl Stagno Navarra have instituted vexatious libel suits against critics of his government.

Abela personally called a press conference, flanked by his entire Cabinet, to publicly demonise civil society organisations for having dared to challenge his policies. He immediately shot down the Opposition’s proposed Bills to implement the public inquiry’s recommendations, bizarrely accusing the opposition of “trying to paralyse the economy”.

Abela knew there was no consultation.  He knows his government hasn’t listened and won’t listen to any feedback.  Over 100 journalists, academics, activists and artists wrote to Abela condemning the lack of consultation.  Among them were the editors of all major news outlets, including it-Torċa.

They protested that “the government has not subjected to free and open consultation proposals to strengthen journalism and freedom of expression”. Abela received that letter on 22 September.  He wrote to the Commissioner on 4 October.

“As recommended by the public inquiry, a committee of experts was established,” Abela bragged.

That committee was not set up according to the public inquiry recommendation. The report recommended that the committee be established under the auspices of the president and not the prime minister. The inquiry recommended that the committee should draw up its own recommendations that parliament should consider.

Instead, Abela simply drew up his own drafts and gave the committee just two months to give him their feedback. There was nothing in that committee “as recommended by the public inquiry”.

“I am glad that the vast majority of the recommendations made have all been taken on board, mostly as proposed,” Abela told the Commissioner.  More twisting of words. Those recommendations weren’t “all taken on board”, as Abela implied.

He’s ruthlessly diluted even those few recommendations the committee made on Abela’s draft proposals.

But Abela wasn’t done lying. His most outrageous claim was that “the committee of experts had the possibility of carrying out own (sic) consultations with journalists, civil society and the public, which consultations I have been made aware were indeed carried out”. Abela had personally prevented that committee from carrying out any consultation.

He had imposed utter secrecy on that committee.  When the committee was invited to participate in a public conference to discuss the legal changes being proposed by the government, the committee’s secretary Frank Mercieca quickly declined the invitation.  He said the committee’s remit “does not authorise it to discuss its deliberations in public”.

Abela knew all this.  He was the one who established the committee’s terms of reference.

The secretary’s email of 14 February was included in the report the committee submitted to Abela. He knew perfectly well the committee could not and did not conduct any consultation. Its secrecy was imposed by him.

“I am glad to inform you,” Abela wrote to Mijatović , “that important and encouraging feedback has already been received”.

From whom? From ONE? From TVM? Nobody has given encouraging feedback about Abela’s proposals – least of all the editors of The Times of Malta, MaltaToday, The Malta Independent, Newsbook, it-Torċa, Net News, The Shift and Lovin Malta who’ve all written to complain that “the government has not invited free and open dialogue about what these reforms should include”.

Abela thought his letter to the commissioner would remain private. He was wrong.

Mijatović was so appalled with Abela’s outlandish deceit that she published their entire correspondence, exposing Abela’s demonstrably questionable morals and his casual relationship with the truth.

Mijatović sent out a clear message to all: Abela cannot be trusted; he cannot be believed.