A lawyer in the Attorney General’s Office may possibly have said something that led the Justice Minister to form the impression the Henley & Partners contract had been exhibited in court, the AG said yesterday. However, he could not draw any conclusions, Peter Grech told Times of Malta when asked to comment after Justice Minister Owen Bonnici blamed his office when accused of trying to mislead Parliament.
The controversy erupted on Monday evening following a Speaker’s ruling that stated that Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee had every right to ask to see the citizenship scheme contract awarded to Henley & Partners.
The Speaker’s advice had been sought after the committee members on the government side, who are in the majority, turned down the Opposition’s request to see the contract.
One of the reasons given by Dr Bonnici was that a court hearing a case related to the Henley & Partners contract had decreed it should not be published.
The Opposition insisted that no such decree had been given and wrote to the Speaker to notify him that Dr Bonnici was trying to “mislead” the House.
When it turned out that the decree was connected to a confidentiality agreement and not to the contract, Dr Bonnici was asked to clarify his position by the Speaker and said he had based his argument on the information provided by the AG’s office.
This newspaper yesterday asked Dr Grech whether this was a genuine mistake on his office’s side or a case of misunderstanding by Dr Bonnici.
He replied that from the debate it emerged that something must have been said by a lawyer or by lawyers at his office “which led the minister to form the impression that the contract, as distinct from other documents relating to the contractual process, had been exhibited in court”.
However he said he had no grounds upon which to draw any conclusions and pointed out that the distinction between the two situations could be “very fine”.
Meanwhile, the PAC has been urgently summoned to meet today to discuss the request to scrutinise the Henley & Partners contract.
In his ruling, Dr Farrugia said that such a request was perfectly legal provided that this was made by the committee and not by an individual MP.
However, the committee chairman was bound to safeguard the interests of justice in view of a pending challenge by one of the bidders for the contract.
There also needed to be safeguards on the disclosure of sensitive commercial information and national security, Dr Farrugia said.
[Something must have been said by a lawyer] which led the minister to form the impression the contract had been exhibited in court
In its first reaction to the ruling, the government said when the PAC was due to discuss this request it would publish the contract with reserve for its commercial aspects.
However, there is no guarantee that the committee will decide to make this request as the government side commands a one-seat majority and may shoot down the Opposition’s effort in this regard.
The Nationalist Party yesterday said it would continue to insist that the contract be published immediately as the government could not keep hiding. Its delaying tactics were unacceptable.
The PN also requested the Prime Minister to issue an apology “for lying to the people” as he had echoed Dr Bonnici’s claim.