Out of the blue, the government let it be known it is considering setting up an anti-organised crime commission. “Cabinet sources” told The Sunday Times of Malta the idea had been floated during a Cabinet meeting in the wake of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder. That raises eyebrows.
The way she was killed by a car bomb was similar to murders attributed to ‘gang warfare’ but, the victim being a journalist/blogger, her violent death was unprecedented. That does not mean the killers/masterminds necessarily came from organised crime. If this was a political murder, as many insist it was, the organised crime commission idea could rightly be labelled as a distracting factor.
Still, we are told, a commission is being considered. It sounds like a quango, to do the work the police and security services should be doing, though admittedly, it is not yet clear exactly how this proposed body will work and who would sit on it.
The announcement or, rather, the leak came just days after the first anniversary of Ms Caruana Galizia’s death was commemorated when the loudest call was for the mastermind/s to be apprehended and face justice. Also, the sources that leaked the information seemed to want to link it to the blogger’s murder.
Still, for all we know, the planned body could well be completely extraneous to the murder itself and was only discussed at Cabinet level because, at the time, it was also being suspected that the blogger could have been targeted by smugglers.
Indeed, it would be wrong to try to peddle the idea that such a commission would give a push to the ongoing murder inquiry, even if both are not necessarily mutually exclusive of each other.
A European Parliament delegation on the rule of law in September said it was rather disappointed after meeting the financial services regulator. Green MEP Sven Giegold said this in the light of Malta’s efforts to become a hub for crypto currencies. He said it was hard to imagine that in other European countries the likes of Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, would have remained in office. He was not speaking of organised crime but of the very governance of this country.
Nearly a year earlier, Chief Justice Emeritus Silvio Camilleri emphasised that the rule of law could not prevail unless the laws were fair and enforced without fear favour. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had “noted” what was said but disagreed. All the former chief justice had said was that the laws need to be enforced by the authorities and that is difficult to disagree with.
A commission to fight organised crime would serve very little, if any, in that regard. Unless, that is, crooks in the corridors of power are classified in that category and treat them as such in the eyes of the law.
That is not to say the proposed commission could not serve a purpose, especially since reports of Mafia operations keep coming in. However, it would be wrong to consider it as the answer to everything. What is necessary is a radical overhaul to ensure the rule of law, mainly through independent institutions, free of a government stranglehold reign supreme. That is a tall order.
This is a Times of Malta print editorial