The minister was replying to questions by Gavin Gulia during question time.

Dr Gulia first rose to ask a supplementary question to Tony Abela who was replying instead of minister Austin Gatt who is abroad. But when Dr Gulia asked the government side to tell him who is responsible for the Forensic Laboratory, Dr Borg, who was sitting opposite, kept mum.

Dr Gulia’s second chance came when Dr Borg himself answered another question, and so Dr Gulia asked him once again: “Who is responsible for the Forensic Laboratory?”

In his reply Dr Borg did not say who is responsible, but he shed some background on the issue regarding the Forensic Laboratory on which there have been statements and counter-statements all through the past week.

Dr Borg said that 10 years ago the Constitutional Court decided that the laboratory cannot form part of the Police Force any longer.

The National Lab was then set up but three public officers at the Forensic Laboratory refused to join the National Lab. They used to get paid as public officers but in their spare time they used to do work, on government machines at the Evans Lab, as court experts.

The solution, as Dr Borg sees it, is that government takes the decision to relocate to the National Lab. If these three officers refuse to go there, government is empowered by the law to appoint a number of other officers who would commit themselves to working at the National Lab.

Malta, the minister concluded, cannot have two laboratories.