A lawyer from the Attorney General's office signed an application for the prime minister and the justice minister not to testify next week in a court case on the publication of the Egrant inquiry report, even though the case was against the AG himself and the prime minister was called as a witness, Adrian Delia said on Sunday. 

Such things would not have happened in a normal democracy, he added. It further showed how the government had taken control of everything, including the police and the Attorney General's office, which were being run directly from Castille.   

The case was filed by Dr Delia, calling on the Attorney General to hand him a full copy of the report in the same way as he had handed copied to the prime minister and the justice minister.  Dr Muscat and minister Owen Bonnici are asking not to testify because of work commitment. 

Rule of law

Dr Delia also said the Opposition was ready to itself present amendments to the  Constitution to strengthen national institutions and the rule of law if the government was unable to do so itself.

It was an absolute disgrace, he said, that a year had passed since the Opposition called for new laws to strengthen the institutions and further amend the constitution.

Now Justice Minister Owen Bonnici was acknowledging the need for major change. But it seemed that none of the prime minister's many consultants, the lawyers in the AG's office or parliament itself was able to draw up the laws.

It was disgraceful that the minister had written to the so-called Venice Commission asking for its advice.

"This is a disgrace that really hurt, the minister felt the need to go abroad, abdicating his responsibilities and asking others for their advice, undermining parliament's own dignity," Dr Delia said.

The PN was ready, from the Opposition, to move the required Bills, he said. 

If the government cannot do it, we will," he insisted. 

Referring to the exchanges in Parliament last week, Dr Delia said the commotion was used to distract people about the fact that government officials were the only ones who had the full Egrant report.

The government was selectively using information from the Egrant report in its attacks on (MP and former Opposition leader) Simon Busuttil, he said.

The Prime Minister had said he would publish the report but had so far failed to do so, coming up with excuses instead, Dr Delia added. This even when the attorney general had himself admitted that in handing the report to Dr Muscat, he had not told him not to publish it.  

Dr Delia made reference to The Sunday Times of Malta revelation that the Prime Minister has more advisers than allowed. “He tells us he’s an underdog, but he uses his resources to hit out at others,” the Opposition leader said.

Dr Bonnici this week also asked the Council of Europe to conduct a review of Malta’s legal and institutional structures, in a letter sent to the so-called Venice Commission.

"This is a certificate of shame," he said, adding the Nationalist Party had asked to work on constitutional and institutional reform for months. "I felt hurt," Dr Delia said. "The Justice Minister took away our role and went abroad to ask them to help with constitutional reform".

On the pre-budget proposals made by the Nationalist Party, Dr Delia said the party wanted to see economic growth benefit all the people.

“Our middle class, instead of aspiring to growth, is getting smaller, because many cannot keep up with costs such as rent,” he said. We have a government that is distracted by greed and spending money while forgetting the little man, he said.

Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case

Dr Delia also referred to the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the upcoming one-year anniversary of the murder.

He reiterated the Opposition's call for a special, autonomous and independent commission to identify shortcomings by the state which could have prevented the murder.   

“We need to find out if the government or authorities knew something we didn’t before her murder,” he said. “Were they in a position to help but didn’t,” Dr Delia asked.

He also referred to Dr Bonnici’s interview on TimesTalk, where he said the government did all it could to investigate the murder.

Did this mean that this was the end of it and the case was being closed?

"Will a statement be made where the police commissioner or the justice minister about the investigation" he asked.

People are crying and calling out for justice, when there is clearly a lack of it, he added.