Updated 11 a.m. - Nationalist MP Franco Debono said this morning that he disagreed with the way the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs had been split because the Attorney General's Office had been placed within the Ministry of Justice, when it should be within the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Speaking to timesofmalta.com, the MP, who had insisted on the division of the ministry, said the reason for this separation should be to separate the judicial from the prosecution and to reinforce the concept of the independence of the judiciary.
The bulk of the AG's work was of public prosecutor and therefore, to reinforce the independence of the justice system, the AG's Office should have been placed within the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is also responsible for the police, he said.
Earlier this morning, Dr Debono said he had no comments to make on an Opposition motion of censure against Richard Cachia Caruana, Malta's representative in Brussels.
The Nationalist MP said however that if decision-making had been removed from Parliament, it should be restored because Malta should always enjoy parliamentary democracy where the will of the people prevailed. He twice stressed that he was speaking in general terms.
(The prime minister yesterday described the Opposition motion as an example of 'gross incompetence' based on misreading of a wikileak about access to secret Nato documents)
Dr Debono also complained that he and other Nationalist MPs had not been consulted regarding the Budget cutbacks. The recent revelation by former Health Minister Louis Deguara that he had been instructed 'from above' to sign an agreement with the doctors' union in 2008 was a case study, he said, and led to the obvious question - if the backbench was not consulted, reference was not made to parliament, and even ministers were not taking decisions, who was?
Replying to questions on One News, Dr Debono again failed to say how he will vote in Parliament on important Bills, such as the Budget Measures Implementation Bill, telling his questioner to follow the parliamentary debate. He also pointed out that it was useless asking him how he would vote when no voting were pending.
He denied that he was to blame for uncertainty stemming from the lack of division votes in Parliament, saying it was not his fault that votes were not being moved.
Parliament meets today after a four-week Easter break.
Asked whether anything had changed since he abstained in a no-confidence vote on January 26, Dr Debono said some things had changed. It was significant that the prime minister had admitted that mistakes had been made. It was also significant that GonziPN was going back to being the PN of the people. But much more needed to be done, he said. Mistakes had been admitted, but no one had resigned.
He argued that parliament should debate pending private motions on justice as soon as possible, adding that the justice minister should abstain from the House Business Committee until it set a date for the debate.
Regarding last week's Constitutional Court judgement extending to the accused the right to appeal from bail decisions, Dr Debono said laws should not be amended just when fundamental human rights are breached but rights should be granted independently of whether the situation was in breach of fundamental rights. A democratic system was not healthy if it had to await a declaration of breach of human rights in order to change the law.
He also referred to the recent police shooting of a migrant near Ghar Hasan. While the police were doing a lot of good, he said, this matter needed to be investigated. This migrant was only carrying a knife. What would have happened had he been carrying a machine gun? He noted that there was a similar case where another man, Bastjan Borg, was shot by the police a few years ago, and said explanations on that case were also still being awaited.