[attach id=257206 size="medium"]Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier[/attach]
Corrupt politicians and their accomplices can now be prosecuted decades after committing their crimes, thanks to a law removing the time-bar on such offences.
“We are solidly raising the bar for higher standards,” Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told the press outside the House of Representatives yesterday.
“I will sleep easy tonight, like I do every night, but those politicians who committed corruption in the past will, from now on, be very worried because their sins will not be forgotten,” he said.
Presented by the Parliamentary Secretary for Justice, Owen Bonnici, the Bill has been approved at committee stage and will pass through its third and final reading in Parliament next week.
It will apply to ministers, parliamentary secretaries, MPs, mayors and local councillors as well as their accomplices.
The law does not explicitly say it can be applied retroactively but is worded in a way that leaves it up to the courts to decide.
Effectively, the law, which was an electoral pledge, removes the right for politicians to invoke time-barring in their defence.
Sources said the courts would have to decide whether time-barring was a substantive or procedural matter and, therefore, whether it could be applied to people who committed the crimes before the change in the law.
The law also gives the State power to seek damages through the Civil Courts to reclaim any money or material goods that could have been acquired by corrupt politicians.
Dr Muscat said the law was the first of three major steps in the Government’s fight against corruption.
The second step was the Whistleblowers Act, which had already been discussed twice in Cabinet and would be presented “in the coming two or three weeks”.
Before the summer, the Government also hopes to begin a discussion on party financing with a view of drawing to a conclusion by September.
He said the law on party financing would require an open discussion with the Opposition, Alternattiva Demokratika and the rest of civil society.
“We want to listen to everyone. We don’t want it to seem like we are doing this to hold back the Opposition. Everyone knows about the current financial situation the Nationalist Party is facing,” he said.
Dr Muscat was asked about the controversial appointments of high-profile Labourites to government boards, especially people who appeared on Labour’s campaign billboards.
In response, he mentioned four traditionally Nationalist individuals who were appointed to various boards, including former MPs Frans Agius, Jean Pierre Farrugia and Frank Portelli and former PN candidate Martin Fenech.
“What you are describing is a caricature of the situation... This Government is deciding on the basis of merit more than ever before. We never had a government that opened its arms and nominations to such a wide variety of all people,” he said.
“I hope you are not saying that people who support the Labour Party should not be considered for any nominations.”
Asked about the fact that at least two ministers had already breached the code of ethics, Dr Muscat specified that only Parliamentary Secretary Franco Mercieca had been given a special waiver in light of his medical specialisations as an eye surgeon.
“If he does not operate, some patients will have to go abroad,” he said.
Asked whether the waiver also allowed Dr Mercieca to conduct cataract operations, Dr Muscat said: “No, I’m talking about his specialisations.”
Dr Muscat reiterated that a new code of ethics was being drawn up to replace the one written in 1994, which, he said, was not written in a way that helped politicians adhere to it.
He added that until the new code of ethics was approved, ministers were bound by the present one.