It was reported last summer that, following years of negotiations, the government had agreed to increase substantially the financial package of judges and magistrates. Court sources were quoted saying judges would get more than €100,000 a year by the end of a three-year pay and allowances agreement and magistrates would receive a boost to their take-home pay, which would see them earn about €90,000 a year gross by 2021.

Seasoned lawyers and court officials welcomed the reported improvements to judicial pay and allowances deeming them not only well deserved but also, most importantly, a means of attracting the best legal minds to the judiciary. Few would disagree with such an assessment given the vital role played by the judiciary in the administration of the rule of law and the high levels of remuneration commanded by the best lawyers in the private sector.

Why therefore will the Justice Minister, Owen Bonnici, not publish the agreement reached by the government with the members of the Bench when most right-thinking people would acknowledge that the judiciary should be properly and fairly remunerated for the vital role it performs?

Dr Bonnici insists that the agreement should not be published as it “will have substantial effects on the conduct of negotiations by or on behalf of the government or another public authority”. Fearing demands by other categories of public officers or their trade unions, he declined a Freedom of Information request by the Times of Malta to publish the agreement reached with the judiciary.

He prays in aid of the government’s position article 38(d) of the Freedom of Information Act, which lays down that if the document disclosure would or could reasonably be expected to have a substantial adverse effect on the conduct of negotiations (including commercial or industrial relations) by or on behalf of the government or another public authority, the details could be withheld.

The government’s argument for not revealing the pay deal reached with the judiciary is based on a number of false premises. First, judges cannot be equated with other public officers. The status the judiciary holds as the third independent arm of the Maltese Constitution – as the recently-published Venice Commission highlighted - renders the position of judges and magistrates totally different to senior civil servants, the police, the Armed Forces of Malta or any other branch of the public service. They are simply not comparable.

The government’s case is unarguable. It must summon the confidence in any discussions with the unions or other negotiating bodies to justify its strong position publicly for rightly rewarding judges more generously.

Second, transparency in public administration, especially concerning financial remuneration, is crucial. Transparency leads to proper accountability and makes it harder for those who break the rules or act unethically to disguise what they are doing.

The government should have nothing to hide on judicial remuneration. The judiciary is the only one of Malta’s three pillars of democracy that has part of its remuneration kept secret and this is patently wrong. It does the judiciary - and democracy - no favours. The judiciary is getting what it deserves.

The Data Protection Officer has been asked to investigate the Justice Minister’s refusal to provide this information that lies quite clearly in the public interest. We shall await his verdict.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial