Few may have an appetite to go into details of yet another survey afteran election campaign in which, as is normal, polls were dissected with great relish by those seeking indications of trends.

However, a special Barometer study, done for the European Commission to check out opinions about different topics linked to a White Paper issued earlier this year on the ‘Future of Europe’, provides some interesting nuggets of information.

In Malta’s case, the findings are more relevant for confirming known facts than for revealing anything particularly new. For example, few would be surprised that, according to the survey, up to 57 per cent of respondents do not trust the media. Malta is one of 25 countries in the European Union where only a minority of respondents tend to trust the media.

Political polarisation, as it may be reflected in news coverage, is one reason but a deeper, fairer and more meaningful assessment would require stratification of both media ownership and content.

However, besides the media, there is one other subject that is of particular interest to Malta in the latest Barometer survey – justice and the legal system.

Malta stands among those in the minority that are least likely to trust justice and the national legal system, including the police. Only 36 per cent tend to trust the justice/legal system, as against 49 per cent that do not.

Quite significantly, the time within which the survey was carried out (between April 15 and 25) coincided with the date (April 20) when blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia carried the story in her blog about Egrant, the offshore company which, she claimed, belonged to Joseph Muscat’s wife.

She also alleged that a series of payments, in the form of loans, amounting to over $1 million, had been routed to Egrant, using a locally-registered bank, Pilatus. Dr Muscat and his wife strongly denied the allegation and called for a magisterial inquiry. But what stood out in the story was that, rather than acting immediately after the claim was made, the police sought to preserve any evidence of the claim that might have existed at the bank only after the Prime Minister called for an inquiry and the bank chairman was seen leaving the Ta’ Xbiex office at night carrying two bags.

This, and the avalanche of other allegations that followed, must have had the strongest bearing on the findings.

Labour’s election victory does not lift the cloud cast over key institutions in the midst of the allegations. What is needed is concrete action to strengthen their independence from the government.

There have been too many factors indicating that the island’s institutions are not working as they should. Two of these are the resignation of the director of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, an agency set up under the Prevention of Laundering Act, and the resignation of one police commissioner.

One way to ensure greater democratic scrutiny, responsibility, and independence from the governing party is to have key appointments made by two-thirds majority in Parliament, as suggested by the Nationalist Party.

One appointment that should be made immediately in this way is that of the Police Commissioner. Other urgent steps need to be taken to restore trust in institutions, but this will be a good beginning.

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