Civil society NGO Repubblika has described Judge Giovanni Grixti’s behaviour in overturning a magisterial inquiry into the Vitals Global Healthcare deal as ‘protecting Konrad Mizzi’s impunity’.
The NGO along with lawyer Andrew Borg Cardona requested that the Commission for the Administration of Justice take action against Judge Grixti, after it accused him of authoring a decree that leads to “loss of respect to the judicial process”.
Grixti had overturned an earlier decision by Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit to hold a magisterial inquiry into the deal between the government and the now-defunct Vitals Global Healthcare to run three state hospitals.
That concession later passed to Steward Healthcare, but remains the subject of controversy, not least after the National Audit Office found that Vitals should have been banned from the tendering process over “collusion”.
That MoU was only reportedly found on Tuesday.
The Commission for the Administration of Justice had told Repubblika that a complaint against a judge could only be moved by the Chief Justice or the Justice Minister. However, Repubblika and Borg Cardona have now requested that their request be reconsidered in view of the NAO report.
The inquiry had first been requested by Repubblika in order to establish whether Finance Minister Edward Scicluna, then-Tourism Minister and former Health Minister Konrad Mizzi, then-Economy Minister Chris Cardona and Technoline managing director Ivan Vassallo had given the group of investors behind VGH an unfair advantage in a contract’s selection process.
Grixti overruled Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit’s go-ahead on the inquiry, stating that the ‘facts’ brought to court by the NGO were simply a collection of journalistic opinions and blogs which Repubblika chose to cobble together, and which he therefore discredited.
“However, now the Auditor General has confirmed the accusations which Repubblika made in that the contract with VGH was worked out before the tender was even published”, Repubblika said.
They said that with his behaviour, Judge Grixti had protected Konrad Mizzi’s impunity, and continued the delay which the police had started when it chose not to investigate information which was published by Daphne Caruana Galizia and the Times of Malta amongst others, to the point that key evidence of criminal wrongdoing such as the MoU had been “hidden”.
Repubblika said that it had made another request for a magisterial inquiry, which was also accepted and which is ongoing.
They said that the removal of Konrad Mizzi from Labour’s parliamentary group is only the beginning, and that what the Auditor General found confirms that corruption which must be accounted for in the Criminal Court.