Karin Grech: I believe they can solve the crime – Prof. Edwin Grech

The government asked Prof. Grech to return to Malta to head the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department at St Luke’s Hospital. He agreed to do so for the duration of the industrial dispute in the best interest of patients.

In that judgment, Mr Justice Ray Pace, had also ruled the government had discriminated against Mr Grech when it failed to pay him compensation.

The government filed an appeal arguing that while it was not contesting the actual sum awarded as compensation it was appealing the “ general suspicion” that the motive behind the bomb was her father’s work.

The government argued that the court could not make such a declaration when the case had not even been solved. Furthermore, it said it had offered compensation, of € 200,000, and had therefore not discriminated against Mr Grech as had been alleged.

Yesterday, Prof. Grech insisted discrimination did in fact exist because the sum was only offered three or four years into the initial court case.

In the judgment yesterday, Acting Chief Justice Geoffrey Valenzia, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Tonio Mallia, in the Constitutional Court, said that once the government had accepted to pay damages during the course of the appeal, then it inferred that it accepted the original judgment and the reasoning behind the award of the damages as they were intrinsically linked.

In a statement yesterday, the Labour Party said the Prime Minister and his Cabinet now had to shoulder responsibility for their insensitivity when filing the appeal.

The court showed that the government had been wrong to deny that the Karin Grech tragedy was linked to the service given by her father.