With all these ongoing magisterial inquiries that are looking into allegations of government corruption at the highest levels, and with the government using those multiple and multifaceted magisterial inquiries as an umbrella under which to take shelter from the storms, it was about time that someone with authority on the subject spoke out.
With all the lofty talk about how these inquiries looking into high-ranking politicians and government functionaries will be utterly respected and about how they are the very manifestation and epitome of the rule of law in this country, it was about time that such a person spoke out and laid the plain facts bare.
That is exactly what Chief Justice Emeritus Vincent De Gaetano, now a judge on the European Court of Human Rights, did recently on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In fact, the former chief justice spelled it out very clearly for all and sundry. Malta, despite pretences to the contrary, has nothing comparable to the autonomous and functionally independent judicial investigations in most of the rest of Europe.
As such, to pass the Maltese magisterial inquiry system off as something akin to what happens in other countries is a complete case of misrepresentation - our words, not his.
The former chief justice’s assessment gets worse and more concerning: In Malta, an inquiry carried out by a magistrate is mainly intended to describe and preserve the material traces of an offence, and it is only in exceptional cases that such inquiries result in arraignments. And even then that decision can still be overruled by the Attorney General.
And when the latter takes such a decision, he or she is only compelled to explain that decision to the President of the Republic, and neither party is duty bound to offer any sort of public explanation. Moreover, there is no judicial review of such decisions to not prosecute, as is the norm in other countries.
He also noted how a magistrate, when undertaking an inquiry, is functionally dependent on the police. Now the problem is that we are here not talking about magisterial inquiries on a construction site accident or a car crash, what we are talking about are inquiries in which people in the highest echelons of power are facing some very serious accusations of corruption and graft.
And when such people have everything to lose, when literally everything is on the line, and when the stakes are as high as they are, some people will stop at nothing to pervert the course of justice to save their skin.
Yes, it was high time that someone of the calibre of a former chief justice sets matters right and explains exactly what one can, and possibly cannot, expect from magisterial inquiries. This is no failing on the part if the magistrates themselves, they are bound by the confines and constraints law.
But those laws clearly need to change if the rule of law is to function as it should in this country, and if the laws of the land are to not be used to simply circumvent justice and pull the wool over the eyes of the nation’s sheep.