Justice in the Daphne Caruana Galizia case can be seen to be done even with Joseph Muscat still holding the post of Prime Minister, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici told The Malta Independent on Wednesday.

Asked by this newsroom whether justice can be seen as being done with Muscat still in place given that the name of his former Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and other people who worked at his office have been mentioned several times in connection with the case, Bonnici said that it could, noting that the inquiring magistrate is tasked with preserving all evidence in the case.

“Yes, I think so because our system is such that where there are serious crimes, the inquiring magistrate has the job of preserving evidence and then conducting their investigations”, Bonnici replied.

“Our system puts minds at rest in that the proof is preserved; so as long as the magistrate has everyone’s faith, which he does, justice is not only being done but it is also seen as being done”, he said.

This newsroom also asked Bonnici on his view as to whether Magistrate Nadine Lia should recuse herself from leading the magisterial inquiry opened into the phantom job given to middleman Melvin Theuma, but he was not drawn into giving his own opinion on the matter.

“On whether the recusal should happen or not, I leave it in the hands of the magistrate leading the inquiry to decide – naturally I cannot say what a magistrate can and cannot do; I always appeal for justice not to only be one, but to be seen to be done and I have no doubt that, like what has happened in other cases, good sense will reign”.

Nadine Lia, appointed a magistrate earlier this year, is the daughter-in-law of Pawlu Lia, who is the Prime Minister’s lawyer and who, up until Wednesday morning according to reports, was also the lawyer of his former chief of staff Keith Schembri who has been implicated by both suspected mastermind Yorgen Fenech and middleman Melvin Theuma in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case.

She had also initially been assigned with hearing the compilation of evidence against Fenech, but eventually abstained herself after a request by both Fenech and the Caruana Galizia family.

Bonnici said that magisterial inquiries are assigned according to a roster of duty magistrates which is decided by the magistrates themselves and not made available to the public, meaning that he would not know which magistrate is on duty on a particular day.

Asked whether he felt that the system in its current form, with there having been a number of recusals on various cases, is resulting in the paralysing of the justice system, Bonnici noted that the system is one which is of the highest transparency.

He said that there is a pool of magistrates upon whom the workload is spread, but noted that Malta is a small country so it is possible that questions arise, for instance, if a judge is related to one of the lawyers or on something along those lines, noting that he recalls criticism levelled against Malta by the European Court of Human Rights because such recusals were quite rare.

“These recusals are quite a recent phenomenon – but times change, and laws change. The point however always remains that justice is not only done but is seen to be done, and naturally I have faith in all our magistrates to do that”, he said.