Former FIAU investigator Jonathan Ferris has filed a court application asking the court to recognise that the reasons given by the External Whistleblowing Unit for failing to recognise him as a whistleblower constitutes a breach in law, and that the way he was treated was in breach of his basic rights.

The case is filed against the Principal Permanent Secretary, and against Philip Massa – employed by the External Whistleblower Unit within the Office of the Prime Minister.

In his application, Ferris says that up until April 2017, he was trusted by the FIAU to supervise investigations into government officials, yet after the general elections were announced, he was removed from this and pushed aside by the same organisation he was previously trusted by. He said that after the elections, on 16 June, his employment was terminated without reason and with immediate effect. “This was a few days after the Finance Minister came out with his theory that the FIAU reports were written with an aim to be leaked.”

He said that in Noivember 2017, he met with members of the EU Parliament’s PANA committee and on 1 December 2017, an official meeting with a government official (Godwin Pulis) occurred in order to start the process for him to receive Whistleblower status. This official, he said, told him to make his first request to the External Whistleblower Unit, and a meeting with Massa then occurred.

Ferris said that he was asked by the official to provide copies of documents he had in his possession to show that he truly deserved whistleblower status. He said that after these documents were handed over, and that a series of emails took place between Massa and his lawyers and in February 2018, Ferris was told that he did not meet the necessary criteria to be given whistleblower status.

Ferris says he was told he could not apply for the protection since he had not done any “internal whistleblowing.” Ferris believes this to lack any legal justification.

Ferris argues that he was removed from the FIAU precisely because he was conducting his work and was arriving at conclusions and results which were politically uncomfortable for politicians in government and people around them. “How could he have done ‘internal whistleblowing’ when he was removed from his position?” Ferris’ lawyers asked. Ferris argues that if left in his position, what he was writing and concluding would also not have been whistleblowing, but would have been him doing his job, reporting on what he was investigating.

He said that the need for whistleblower protection came about specifically because he was removed from his place of employment, a fact that was told to Massa. He argues that the failure to grant him whistleblower status is an abuse of power by a public authority.

Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Andrew Borg Cardona filed the court application on behalf of Ferris.