‘I expected much better from the judiciary’, Prime Minister says as inquiry report concluded

Prime Minister Robert Abela said that he expects much better from the judiciary while addressing the press on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, a court hearing a case submitted by former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to take the inquiry magistrate off the case heard that the Vitals inquiry had been concluded on Thursday 24 April and was sent to the Attorney General’s office on 25 April.

Abela said that the magistrate chose to conclude her report on the same day that the call for nominations for the EP and local council elections opened. He said that the magistrate should have finished her work within two months, but she took four and a half years to complete her task.

He said he will not speak about the merits of the case but expressed concern about its timing. He said he believes in justice, but also that it should not be politicised.

Abela said he had anticipated that the inquiry would have been published just before the elections, and this is something that he had mentioned months ago after “being told” that this was the most likely scenario.

That justice becomes a political football is something that worries him, the Prime Minister said, because justice should always be segregated from politics.

He said that the contents of the inquiry report and the timeline need to be analysed with serenity. But he again expressed his disappointment about the timing of the conclusion of the inquiry, which coincided with the election. “I expected much better from the judiciary,” he said.

He also reportedly said that he would like the conclusions of the Vitals magisterial inquiry to be published.

In comments to journalists after presiding over a Cabinet meeting in Żejtun, Abela said that he would like the report to be published for the sake of transparency.

He said he thinks that the document should be made available to the public.

By law, it is the Attorney General who is empowered to decide whether to publish a magisterial inquiry or to withhold it.

In 2018, the Attorney General had published some of the conclusions of the Egrant inquiry, which also involved Joseph Muscat.