The inquiry established under the Inquiries Act regarding the behaviour of public authorities in the Capital One case has been published.

The first conclusion and remark which needs to be registered is that the Inquiries Act of 1977 applies only to public officers and authorities. This means that Beppe Fenech Adami – not being a public officer – was at no point under investigation, even if the media sometimes gave the impression that he was by referring to the ‘Fenech Adami inquiry’.

Having said that, the board could not find any link between the PN deputy leader and any involvement in any capacity either with the police or the Attorney General’s office. Once such evidence is not found, it is useless to say that one cannot exclude anything in life. If criminal trials were to be decided on what could not be excluded, the freedoms and liberties of citizens would come to an end.

The second conclusion of the report is that all freezing orders and information required by the Dutch authorities vis-à-vis the company under investigation were executed in Malta without any delay. Sometimes even information more than that requested was sent by the Maltese authorities.

The Dutch authorities at a certain point in time withdrew their case against the Dutch owner of the companies registered in Malta for lack of evidence and requested that the Maltese authorities withdraw the freezing orders they had requested. This is the probable cause, also mentioned by the police in their evidence before the board, for the local authorities’ decision not to continue with their investigations regarding the Malta-based companies, for money-laundering offences can only subsist in relation to proceeds coming from crime and a criminal conviction.

I have forgotten the last time a lawyer, rather than a former or serving judge, was entrusted with an inquiry

So what is all the fuss about?

As usual, a normal criminal investigation and mutual co-operation on criminal matters has been used to cast doubts about a police investigation because the name Beppe Fenech Adami as a director of one of the fiduciary companies cropped up at some stage.

The police investigation was under the direction of the then assistant commissioner Michael Cassar, who has occupied important posts under different administrations. Indeed the current administration a few weeks after the happenings of the case, which gave rise to the inquiry, promoted him to police commissioner. Had anything been amiss in the police investigation, he would have intervened.

The fact that the board of inquiry has recommended further investigations by the police does not mean that full cooperation was not given by the public authorities to the Dutch request. Indeed, the Dutch authorities informed the board that they were fully satisfied with the actions of the Maltese public authorities and rejected any idea of a conspiracy theory.

They also averred that they had not spoken to any media in Malta. Indeed they said to the board: “It is alleged in the MaltaToday article that the Dutch prosecutors expressed anger with the newspaper’s sources that the said financial transactions of Capital One bank account were never passed to them: is this allegation correct? The Dutch prosecutor Djonte replied: this is not correct. I was the only public prosecutor in charge of this criminal investigation. I have never made a statement to the press of Malta.”

Another Dutch official stated to the board that “the Dutch authorities have no idea where this journalist’s conspiracy theory comes from”(page 9 of the inquiry report).

Inquiries should not be used to taint the character of or to attack political adversaries.

Inquiries, particularly when presided over by three former judges, should be restricted to serious cases, such as the allegation that senior government ministers interfered with a drug-trafficking investigation in Gozo.

While in 2014, in the case of an alleged attempted murder committed by a minister’s chauffeur, three former judges were hauled out of retirement to conduct an inquiry, in the case of serious allegations regarding interference in police investigations regarding drug trafficking in Gozo – which I sincerely hope are mere allegations – a practising lawyer has been appointed to conduct an inquiry.

I have forgotten the last time a lawyer, rather than a former or serving judge, was entrusted with an inquiry. In my opinion, these serious allegations deserve to be subjected to an inquiry by a serving judge who enjoys security of tenure, unlike former judges.

Tonio Borg is a former deputy prime minister and European commissioner.