In November, eight MEPs came and listened to the Maltese authorities. Then they wrote a 36-page report detailing why their ad-hoc, fact-finding mission – on rule of law and risks of money laundering in Malta – was justified. They concluded their previous fears were well-grounded.

There are two ways of assessing their conclusion. One was offered by the government. The MEPs are prejudiced. The report might has well have been written up before they came.

As for why they’re prejudiced, it’s envy of our economy, stupid. Then there is that wicked, wicked man, David Casa, sedulous whispering scion of the sibilant snake in the original sumptuous sun-kissed paradise.

He is a man of such occult powers that his forked hissings into the MEPs’ ears overcame the voice of truth and virtue represented by the combined force of the Prime Minister, the Attorney-General, the Police Commissioner and so many others.

You’re free to reach a different assessment, however. Namely, the MEPs didn’t change their mind because nothing the government said was convincing. They concluded, in other words, that upon examination things were as bad as they looked. They scratched the surface – and found more of the same.

How do you decide between these two different assessments? One way is to imagine yourself asking their questions. Then think about how you would react to the answers given.

You talk to a representative of the FIAU, the financial intelligence agency, and ask how come a damning compliance report for Pilatus Bank was reversed a few months later by a second report, which gave a clean bill of health.

The explanation doesn’t clear up why the second report coincided with the resignation of Manfred Galdes, who led the agency at the time of the first damning report.

You ask the Police Commissioner why the police never investigated the FIAU reports they received, which said there was reasonable suspicion of money-laundering by people in or close to the government, including Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.

The Commissioner tells you it’s because there was no follow-up to the reports.

But you are informed that there was indeed a follow-up: a shake-up of personnel at the FIAU. Besides, the FIAU report was meant to trigger a follow-up by the police force itself. How could there be a follow-up of information if the police did not investigate?

You talk to the Attorney General. He says he cannot initiate a prosecution.

But you’re asking why he didn’t call for an investigation, not why he didn’t prosecute. He says he cannot begin an investigation, either. But you’ve heard – from the Chief Justice among others – that the law gives him the right to request an investigation.

Ah, says the Attorney General, but even for that I need “concrete evidence”. How concrete? Well, he says, the FIAU reports are not concrete enough.

Think this through. The FIAU is there to protect the integrity of Malta’s financial services. But the best the financial intelligence agency can do, against suspected money launderers, isn’t enough to request an investigation. Our financial services cannot rely on the agency meant to defend their interests.

If you take the Attorney General at his word, you must conclude that Malta’s high legal standards (of proof) are actually serving to undermine the rule of law.

You are led to that conclusion by the Chief Justice, himself a former Attorney General, who says that in a climate where investigations and prosecutions are too few, a culture of impunity can indeed develop.

Meanwhile, the Chief Justice adds something that makes you wonder about the Police Commissioner. The police don’t even need a “reasonable suspicion” to begin an investigation. A sliver of information is enough. Not least because, like elsewhere in the world where rule of law prevails, the police are duty-bound to prevent crimes, not just solve them.

You’re on the verge of concluding that either the laws themselves frustrate good governance or the personnel in charge of enforcing the laws are not doing their duty.

But you’re bending over backwards to be fair. Perhaps you should trust Malta’s officials more. Except this raises more doubts and problems.

With the MEPs, Joseph Muscat changed his tune. He would have ridiculed himself by trying to ridicule Simon Busuttil

Let’s try trusting the Police Commissioner’s judgement.

On the night that Daphne Caruana Galizia broke the Egrant story, he told the press that he saw no reason to raid the offices of Pilatus Bank. The next morning, and many, many hours later, however, the police did raid the bank.

That’s an admission there was good reason, after all. In a few hours, the Commissioner changed his mind. Except, of course, that by then the raid came too late if there was anything at all incriminating to be found.

Take the leaked FIAU reports. Everything is based on the assumption that they were trustworthy to begin with. But were they?

Actually, the Prime Minister himself gives you the reassurance that reports were taken seriously by the government. He says magistrates were appointed to investigate and that these appointments were also supported by the Opposition (as though the latter followed the government’s lead).

But you do some fact-checking. You remember the reports had been in the possession of the police since 2016. The magistrates were appointed in 2017. It was the Opposition leader, then Simon Busuttil, who triggered the investigation. The government had no choice in the matter.

Did the government really do nothing? Not at all. At the time the Finance Minister had suggested the reports were written in bad faith – to be leaked.

If that were true, it would mean those reports were intended to waste the time of the police – which would have merited legal action against the report’s author(s). But no such action was taken.

Moreover, Busuttil was ridiculed by the government’s spin machine, including on Glenn Bedingfield’s blog, runby an employee of the Office of the Prime Minister. Busuttil’s actions were said to illustrate his negativity and bitterness and ruthlessness in seeking power at all costs.

With the MEPs, however, Muscat changed his tune. He would have ridiculed himself by trying to ridicule Busuttil. Instead he tried to claim or share credit for the investigation of the FIAU reports.

So, suppose you were one of those MEPs. Would you be reassured by someone who, like his chief of staff, changes his tune according to his audience?

Now, perhaps, you can understand the MEPs who had to write that report. They tried to make sense of what they were told and failed.

Poor things. They might envy us. We shouldn’t envy them. We have the best rule of law money can buy.

ranierfsadni@europe.com