International organisations which expressed outrage following the government’s decision to remove a makeshift memorial to Daphne Caruana Galizia should let the courts decide the issue, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici has said.

“I feel that the rule of law requires that it is the courts that... should decide the issue,” Dr Bonnici wrote in a letter replying to complaints by PEN International.

That perspective mirrors the stance taken by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who has declined to comment on the matter until the court case has played out. 

A battle over the makeshift memorial is currently in court, with a group of lawyers going up against the government and its desire to ensure the shrine is not permanent.

In the letter, Dr Bonnici highlighted public concerns about the makeshift memorial, which he said prompted “considerable tension” among the public.

Controversy over the makeshift memorial has raged in the months since Ms Caruana Galizia was murdered, with activists repeatedly placing candles, flowers and portraits at the foot of the Great Siege Memorial in Valletta, only to have them swept away within days or even hours.

A delegation made up of representatives of press freedom organisations including PEN International visited Malta earlier this month and met with Dr Bonnici and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, among others.

They left the island saying they still harboured doubts about the government’s determination to solve the murder case, and told authorities during a vigil to mark one year since Ms Caruana Galizia’s murder “do not dare remove this memorial”.

Two days later, the memorial site was cleared of all traces of Ms Caruana Galizia, and that same day, PEN International’s Sarah Clarke had written to Dr Bonnici and called on him to ensure the memorial was kept for as long as people wished.

In his reply, Dr Bonnici pushed back against those calls, emphasising the national importance of the Great Siege Memorial.

The makeshift memorial to Ms Caruana Galizia was there “for months” and a number of “unknown individuals” had removed it in the preceding months, Dr Bonnici wrote.

“At times it has also created clashes among individuals who wanted to honour the memory of Caruana Galizia and other citizens who would feel offended [by it],” he added.

The government had to strike a balance between those who wanted Ms Caruana Galizia honoured and those who felt “offended that a national monument is permanently taken over and converted for purposes totally difference from those for which they were put and paid for by the Maltese public as a whole,” the Justice Minister argued.

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