Defiant Ferris ‘will not stop here’ despite being denied whistle-blower status

Former FIAU official Jonathan Ferris has received a long-awaited reply to the Judicial Protest he filed after the government failed to grant him whistleblower status, despite what he says were clear assurances by the Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Justice Minister Owen Bonnici to the European Parliamentarians.

The former FIAU officer and ex-police inspector had filed a judicial protest two weeks ago against the Prime Minister, the Minister for Justice, the Attorney General and External Whistleblower Unit officer Philip Massa saying the Unit had repeatedly moved the goalposts to derail his application for Whistleblower protection.

Ferris, a former police inspector with the Economic Crimes Unit, had been fired from a new post at the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit not long after joining it. He claims that this happened because he dug too deep in his investigations into government corruption allegations. Ferris insists that the termination of his employment was illegal and abusive and the result of ministerial interference.

He had later filed a case before the Industrial Tribunal arguing unfair dismissal and in January had filed a judicial protest against the Attorney General, demanding whistleblower status which he claims was being unreasonably withheld.

But in a counter-protest filed last week, both the Prime Minister and Bonnici denied being the appropriate defendants in the matter, while the External Whistleblower Unit Chief simply said that Ferris did not qualify for protection, as he “failed to act in line with the dispositions of Protection of the Whistleblower Act“.

Contacted for their views, Ferris’ legal team expressed polite disdain for the government’s repetition of its stonewalling tactics, in direct contrast to the way it had spoken to the MEPs. “Mr Ferris will not be stopping here,“they promised.

The judicial protest

Ferris filed a judicial protest, the first stage before filing an actual lawsuit, against the Prime Minister, the Minister for Justice, the Attorney General and External Whistleblower Unit officer Philip Massa saying the Unit had repeatedly moved the goalposts to derail his application for Whistleblower protection.

He had filed a case before the Industrial Tribunal arguing unfair dismissal, and in January had filed a judicial protest against the Attorney General, demanding whistleblower status which he claims was being unreasonably withheld. “Despite an exchange of emails between his legal consultants, the Whistleblower Officers at the Ministry of Finance and Justice and the Cabinet Office, they did nothing but waste his time.”

In the Judicial Protest, Ferris said he wished to “inform and formally call out to the authorities, the actual position which is in shameless breach of the spirit and letter of the law”.

Giving a chronological breakdown of the events, which Ferris said should “make the protested parties blush, despite the nice words said by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Justice, recently”, the protest paints a dispiriting picture of unreasonableness.

On 1 December 2017, Ferris and his lawyer met the Whistleblower Officer at the Ministry of Finance and told that he should be given whistleblower status.

A few days later, Ferris was informed that because he was an ex-FIAU employee, the request had to be made to the External Whistleblower Disclosure Unit in the Cabinet Office.

In the first week of December 2017, Ferris’ lawyers wrote to the Whistleblower officer at the Ministry of Justice, Godwin Pulis, asking for a meeting, which was granted and in which he was instructed to make an “external disclosure” as he was no longer an employee of the FIAU.

No less than six reminders were sent to Pulis asking where exactly this external disclosure was supposed to be made, and in January 2018 Ferris was informed that it should be made to the Cabinet Office.

Ferris’ legal team had corresponded with Philip Massa, an officer in the External Whistleblower Office, in the hope of making a formal request for Whistleblower Status.

The Judicial Protest states that Massa had requested that Ferris first send him the information he wished to disclose in writing. “On 12 January, his legal team had replied, literally five minutes after receiving the email from Massa, asking for an urgent appointment. An automatically-generated acknowledgment was immediately received.” Four days later, after a reminder was sent to Massa, he had replied with an email explaining that “an external disclosure in terms of the Protection of Whistleblower Act has to be made in writing”, insisting that the meeting Ferris had

Jonathan Ferris