A recent post on Manuel Delia’s blog put things in shocking perspective. There’s no reason to think Justice Minister Owen Bonnici was Joseph Muscat’s attorney for a day, the day the Egrant inquiry was completed. Come to think of it, Muscat already had an attorney. He didn’t need a new one to make the call to Peter Grech to ask for a copy of the document.

The only reasonable assumption is that Bonnici was Muscat’s attorney throughout the conduct of the Egrant inquiry. And that he still is his attorney as other, very important inquiries into the conduct of Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, are still under way.

This is no ordinary conflict of interest. It is not merely a scandal. This is not about Bonnici doing a little part-time work when he’s supposed to be on call for his principal employer.

When so many lines have been crossed, it becomes a cliché to say another one has been now. But the independence of the judiciary and the judicial process has now been well and truly punctured. The Justice Minister holds in his gift the currency that can influence court officials, employees, even magistrates and judges: the difference between promotion and career stasis.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Everybody is human. You may have all the good intentions in the world. You do not ignore the weight of a phone call from your minister, especially if he tells you he is acting on behalf of the person you’re investigating. He doesn’t have to threaten you. The conversation can be pleasant but you cannot be serene.

You know perfectly well why of all the hundreds of women and men at the Maltese bar, Muscat chose as his lawyer your minister.

The independence of the judiciary and the judicial process has now been well and truly punctured

Even worse, this must be the most reasonable assumption. It’s likely that Muscat chose Bonnici as Justice Minister precisely because he’s his attorney. 

Many reasons have been published putting into serious doubt the credibility of the Egrant inquiry. Not to mention the other ongoing inquiries that continue to bubble under the watchful eye of Bonnici, attorney to Muscat, who has the most to lose if their outcome is not to his liking.

Bonnici no longer bothers to find reasons to soothe what should be a deeply moral crisis. He is either not smart enough to realise how he’s being used or his careerist opportunism, the norm in a corporatist fascist state, is actually the example he wants to impart to the State officials he gets on the phone with.

He has made his ministry as a misnomer as George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. No justice can be served if the subject of the inquiry controls the process and the outcome.

The rotten nomenclature does not end there. Surely Bonnici knows that the first minister to resign in Slovakia when Jan Kuciak was killed was the culture minister. There was no suggestion he had anything to do with the assassination. But, that minister had said, it is the duty of the Minister for Culture to protect free speech. If a journalist is killed under their watch, there must be an assumption of some responsibility.

True Slovakia has a longer democratic tradition, a deeper sense of pluralism, a broader understanding of accountability than Malta has. We had barely emerged from under the iron curtain when we duly dove behind it again.

But for Bonnici to lead the charge of cancelling the memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia, suppressing protest, and dispatching vigilantes by night to wipe out any sign of protest at her death, is the ultimate perversion.

They say Caruana Galizia was divisive. She may have been. Hers was not a religious mission. She was a journalist and her job was to be a thorn in the side of the powerful. Our powerful are used to the fluffy cushions of partisan idolatry which made her stick out. Until she did not anymore.

As he orders every photo of her in circulation removed and binned, Bonnici knows that for corrupting his office of Justice Minister, Caruana Galizia would be giving him unenviable grief right now.

If she had still been alive. No wonder he cannot hide his glee she is not.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece