Leader of the Opposition, Dr Simon Busuttil, today insisted that "the Maltese public deserved a better government than" the one which is currently running the country. This was said during a Sunday morning interview on Radio 101.

The interview focused mainly on three issues which were: the Gaffarena scandal, the two new magistrate appointments and the PN's recently published document of proposals entitled "Building a New Trust in Politics".

On the Gaffarena scandal, Dr Busuttil said that the scandal itself shows how Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's "mask has fallen". According to Dr Busuttil, the government made countless electoral promises and has now betrayed and continues to betray the voters, especially "genuine labourites". The leader of the opposition reiterated three as yet unanswered questions for the third consecutive week: Did Joseph Muscat know about the Gaffarena deal? Are the police investigating the Office of the Prime Minister? And did Mr Gaffarena pay anyone off to get his €3,500,000?

Dr Busuttil went on to speak about the new two new proposed magistrates, Dr Zammit Young and Dr Farrugia Frendo saying that it was a carefully orchestrated scandal done to distract the Opposition from speaking about the Gaffarena scandal. Dr Busuttil insisted that, if that was the case, it did not work, as evident from the second condemnation from an independent institution in two weeks for the government, this time the Commission for the Administration of Justice.

The Commission, as pointed out by Dr Busuttil, stated that the two appointments go against the constitution due to Dr Zammit Young having been the Chairman of the Employment and Training Corporation and Dr Farrugia Frendo not meeting the minimum seven years of working legal experience.

On this issue, the leader of the opposition stated that "Anyone who is ready to break the constitution to do what he wants is not worthy of running this country" adding that the prime minister was ready to go against "the highest form of law in Malta" in his haste to satisfy people in his "clique". Dr Busuttil also mentioned the rumour that the only reason Dr Farrugia Frendo was nominated was to keep her father, Speaker of Parliament Anglu Farrugia, happy after he was denied to opportunity to replace Louis Galea at the European Court of Auditors.

The PN leader then spoke about two issues with the current Minister for Justice, Owen Bonnici, calling him "totally incompetent" and calling for his resignation. Dr Busuttil said that Dr Bonnici either doesn't know what the constitution says, or else willingly went ahead despite what it says to "make the prime minister happy".

The interview then passed on to talk about the document which was published by the PN in December about good governance entitled, "Building a New Trust in Politics". Dr Busuttil spoke about more than 100 proposals being made including being ready to change the way members of the judiciary are appointed to increase transparency, Judge Giovanni Bonello's consultation.

Another proposal in the document is to ensure better respect and distinction between the government, parliament and the judiciary. According to Dr Busuttil, the three pillars currently lack all distinction for the sake of control of institutions. One more proposal mentioned was to reduce the risk of corruption by making it a duty for parliamentary members to report other parliamentary members if there are any semblances of corruption.

The leader of the opposition ended his discussion about the new proposals by saying: "These are the standards we want for this country."