Release of Dalli report imperative

As more and more innuendos continue to circulate around the John Dalli case with each passing day, the release of the OLAF report into Mr Dalli’s alleged misdoings also becomes more imperative with each passing day.

As with each passing day Malta’s hard-earned good name in Europe is being dragged through the dirt, to the point where the matter has now gone far beyond a case of it being interesting to the nation – it has now become a case of the national interest.

Granted, we in the media may have a vested interest in the report being published, no doubt for some to continue with sensational reporting and also to be able to assess the charges against the commissioner that we collectively sent to Brussels, but this goes far beyond that.

So many in the Maltese media have condemned Mr Dalli so quickly without even seeing a shred of proof against him, going only on the word of the European Commission and its anti-fraud agency, OLAF. It is true that both bodies have stuck their necks out on this one, for if Mr Dalli is proved innocent of the ‘unambiguous’ but ‘circumstantial’ evidence against him, heads would undoubtedly have to roll in Brussels.

That fact alone leads one to believe that there simply must be something very damning indeed in this report that has been kept under strict lock and key.

But without being presented with a shred of concrete evidence, all that we have to go on is their word that Mr Dalli is guilty, but exactly of what we still do not know. As such, the evidence that so many have damned Mr Dalli with is, really and truly and in the cold light of day, no more than hearsay.

But in leaping so quickly to condemn someone who is after all innocent until proven otherwise, many of us in the media have neglected some of the most basic rules of journalism. And the public is following suit, assuming that we in the media perhaps know something that they do not. But no, we do not know any more than Joe Citizen does. We have already exhaustively reported everything that we know.

In this context, whether Mr Dalli is innocent or guilty in the affair matters little. Yes, Mr Dalli has been charged with misdoings in the past here in Malta so we are perhaps quicker to pass judgement on him. But one should also recall that Mr Dalli has been vindicated and cleared of those charges.

Dubbed Dalligate or Tobaccogate depending on which way one looks at the matter, the issue is a major scandal, but what exactly the scandal is we do not rightly know.

OLAF’s Dalli report must be made public at the earliest opportunity possible so that, for starters, the media can set about reporting the story accurately instead of reporting innuendos and also so the country can set about clearing its name, which is being tarnished further with practically every passing day, one way or another.

The police must also act quickly, now that the ball is in its court. Any delay in ascertaining whether to prosecute Mr Dalli or not only exacerbates the damage being done to the country.

Of course, should he be found guilty, he must face the most severe brunt of the law. A proper punishment must be meted out so as to send the signal that Malta in this day and age will not tolerate any such corruption or even attempted corruption. If proved innocent, Mr Dalli should be entitled to seek full redress in the courts of law against his dismissal and against anyone who may have been complicit in the act.

Either way, the issue needs to be resolved at the earliest possible opportunity, and the media as well will need to do some soul searching on the issue, either way it pans out.

Not only has the country been shamed and its reputation tarnished on a European and even a global scale, for there are few corners of the world the story has not reached, but the accusations levelled against Mr Dalli appear, from the scant information released to date, far too vague for anyone to form a properly informed opinion on the matter.

This is not solely an issue for the government that nominated him as Commissioner, this has become a national issue. If Mr Dalli is guilty as charged, there is a price that must be paid for such transgressions. But if he is innocent at the end of the day, there is quite another price to be paid.

The report, as long as it is being assessed and investigated by the police, for very obvious reasons cannot be released at this stage. But to let it lie for too long with all these questions hovering over it would be an injustice to the nation as a whole.

Not only Mr Dalli, but the entire Maltese population have a sacrosanct right to know what their Commissioner, and in a way the country itself, is being accused of. And the man at the centre of the storm, John Dalli, has also called for the report to be made public as soon as possible, insisting on his innocence.

OLAF has found “unambiguous circumstantial evidence” that former EU Commissioner John Dalli was aware that approaches were being made to influence the new tobacco directive and it says that at no point did he try to disassociate himself from or alert the commission of what was taking place.

But it is vague in that it strangely does not pinpoint any wrongdoing on the part of Mr Dalli. There are a lot of questions being asked in Malta and in Europe over the whole affair. The report also says that in no way was the tobacco directive being drafted by Mr Dalli compromised, effectively clearing him of tangible wrongdoing.

There are far too many questions being asked, in Malta and the rest of Europe, about the affair for the accusations to be kept under wraps for too long.

And while the President of the European Commission, one of the few people to have seen the full report, has evidently found enough incriminating evidence to request Mr Dalli’s resignation on the spot, that is simply not enough information for anyone to base a properly informed decision upon.