Until their article in The Sunday Times of Malta, it was difficult to understand what the so-called “Occupy Justice” protest movement was aiming to achieve. The picture is clearer, though still ill-formed.
This group of plucky women has come together in the wake of a horrific crime that has rocked Malta to its constitutional foundations. That the Occupy Justice movement is therefore motivated by good intentions is beyond contention. They have felt impelled to make the voice of mothers in civil society heard. Their reaction has been an emotional one, but all the more valid for that.
A fortnight ago, they camped for several days in the square outside the Prime Minister’s office at the Auberge de Castille and demanded to speak to the Prime Minister. Last week, their wish was granted. They met Muscat at Castille. The (deliberately anonymous) Occupy Justice activists, reading from a prepared script, set out their position for the benefit of the media. Their demands were simple: the immediate resignation of the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General.
The Prime Minister listened carefully to what they had requested. Once the media had left the Cabinet room, he invited the activists for a discussion of the issues they had raised. But, extraordinarily, they said they had nothing further to add. They had delivered their message: “Our demands are clear and we won’t negotiate.”
This was a curious position to adopt. And a huge opportunity missed. The activists had the Prime Minister in thrall, flanked by three of his ministers. He was prepared to listen to their arguments in support of their demands. They had a chance to use the power of advocacy – the power of persuasion – before the person who has the ability to pursue their case.
A chance for persons, mutually respecting each other, to try to explain their points of view. And, sadly, they flunked it. Did they not have the confidence in the strength of their own case to pursue it?
I sympathise with the concerns that Occupy Justice has expressed about the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General. But the demand for their resignations is misplaced. Just as the French director general of the national police could not be held directly responsible for the Bataclan killing of 130 people in Paris in 2015, it would take the most extraordinary stretch of the imagination to link the assassination on October 16 either directly or indirectly to the Attorney General or the Commissioner of Police.
What is needed now is not the hollow gesture which demanding a resignation entails, but the long-awaited rebuilding of the Malta police force.
In 11 years serving in Office of the Prime Minister and Home Affairs, I have observed the police at first hand.
The police force is badly led and demoralised. Removing the fifth police commissioner in five years now would solve little, and might actually make the situation worse.
The Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General represent the front line of the rule of law and the administration of justice in Malta
Good leadership is the key to the efficiency and morale of any disciplined force and essential to its rehabilitation. There are many good officers in the police corps, but there is no leadership quality in depth.
The Commissioner of Police has lost the confidence of the country. I therefore agree there should be a suitable replacement. I have suggested that a top foreign professional should be parachuted in to knock the police corps into shape. It will take years to do so. But the process must start immediately.
Extreme circumstances demand radical solutions. My suggestion has drawn predictable reactions from some “Little Islander” nativists in our midst. But the bottom line remains that unless we take sweeping steps – including, crucially, comprehensive overseas training for those officers who have that rare spark of leadership quality to develop further and to learn what the culture of a top police service consists of at first hand – we shall remain stuck in the current morass.
As to the concomitant demand for the Attorney General’s head, the nub of the problem lies in our Constitution. It is not that the current incumbent is in any way incompetent – quite the opposite – but that his constitutional job description asks him to straddle an impossible range of potentially clashing responsibilities as the government’s lawyer, drafting laws, including subsidiary legislation, giving advice to ministers and the public service, and defending urgent constitutional cases. All in addition to his prosecution role.
The legislative and administrative steps necessary should be taken immediately for the prosecution role of the Attorney General to be removed from his ambit. The establishment of an independent prosecution service within the Ministry of Justice should be set in train. This would have its own legal personality and be independent of the attorney general.
The prosecution functions of the attorney general should in future be vested in another officer, to be known as the prosecutor general.
The prosecutor general would be given the constitutional and legal guarantees necessary to ensure his independence from the executive. For all prosecution purposes the police, who would retain their responsibilities for investigation, would be under the ultimate direction and responsibility of the prosecutor general.
The prosecutor general would have full powers to instruct, continue and stop criminal proceedings. He would have the right to prosecute any type of criminal case under Maltese law unless he chose to delegate specific cases to the prosecution unit of the Malta Police Force.
The Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General represent the front line of the rule of law and the administration of justice in Malta. They must be beyond reproach professionally, as well as independent minded. Judicial independence is a pre-requisite to the rule of law and a fundamental guarantee of a fair trial.
As Edmund Burke once explained, the rule of law requires “the cold neutrality of an impartial justice system”. Both the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police should not be subjected by anyone – government, media or litigant – to fear or to favour towards one side or the other. They must have the character and the constitutional underpinning to resist outside pressure in any form it takes.
Then Occupy Justice might achieve what they wish for.