Government must recognise how it failed to help prevent another tragedy – Minister

The death of Miriam Pace is unacceptable and the government must recognise how it has failed to prevent similar tragedies from happening again, Minister for Justice, Equality and Governance Edward Zammit Lewis has told The Malta Independent.

Pace, a mother of two, was found beneath the rubble of her Ħamrun home nearly eight hours after the building collapsed. The plot adjacent to her residence was being excavated.

“Our failures could have either resulted from government entities, from the architect’s judgement, from the contractors and from many others,” explained the minister. He said that it is wrong that the private sector and the government point blame at one another, arguing that this is the wrong process to move forward.

This newsroom asked whether the court needs to hand down harsher sentences to contractors who break the law. Minister Zammit Lewis said that “the courts need to be harsh when handing out fines; however, the courts have their independence and impartiality.” As justice minister, he said, he provides the courts with the resources needed, but cannot interfere in their work.

“It is unjust to say that the reason this tragedy happened is simply because of a judicial issue,” Zammit Lewis said.

He added that certain matters can definitely be improved, including enforcement, more people taking responsibility for what they have done, and showing more respect towards each other.

He said that “we need to work together in order to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, as the value of a person’s life is ultimately the most important thing.”

Zammit Lewis added that although the “public trusts the government, this trust needs to be translated to responsibility by finding where the government has failed, in order to prevent another tragedy, similar to what happened to Miriam Pace, from happening again.”