Magistrate Nadine Lia and Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg should be impeached and removed from office following decisions by different judges on Monday, NGO Repubblika said Monday.

Addressing the media in front of the law courts in Valletta, the NGO's president, Robert Aquilina, said the decisions taken in different court rooms had "rocked" the system.

Mr Justice Ian Spiteri Bailey had found that the magistrate 'lied' about a decree she said she had issued. 

Aquilina said that after the judge had issued a temporary order for a case before magistrate Lia to be transferred to another magistrate, the magistrate said she issued a decree putting off a sitting due on October 27. But the judge was unable to later find that decree.

Repubblika said this showed that the magistrate had lied.

The challenge proceedings request the court to compel the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General to file charges against Pilatus Bank officials who were earmarked for prosecution by a magisterial inquiry.

Magistrate Nadine Lia presided over those challenge proceedings, with Repubblika asking that she recuse herself in view of her family ties to lawyer Pawlu Lia, who was Joseph Muscat's lawyer. The magistrate had refused to do so, precipitating the filing of the constitutional case.

In the second case, Aquilina said, Mr Justice Christian Falzon Scerri had ruled that Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg must testify in a case instituted by Repubblika.

The judge has rejected applications filed by a police inspector from the Financial Crimes Investigation Department (FCID) and the Attorney General who had asked the court not to compel them to testify in a case over the police’s failure to prosecute senior officials at Pilatus Bank.

The judge, Aquilina said, had criticised Buttigieg for not wanting her own decisions to be reviewed by the courts.

Two weeks ago, another judge had told the attorney general she must not think she is above the law, Aquilina said. 

On Monday, the judge also criticised the attorney general after finding that she had first said, under oath, that she had not taken any decisions on the Pilatus case, and then last Friday she said she could not testify on a decision she had taken.

"She got mixed up in her own lies and was censured by the judge," Aquilina said. 

"These matters are very serious...It is evident that Magistrate Nadine Lia is not fit for purpose, she lied about us and now she had lied to a judge," Aquilina said.

"The attorney general is abusing of her constitutional office and has been found to have lied under oath," he said. 

In light of the two court rulings, Repubblika was calling on parliament to initiate impeachment proceedings against both the magistrate and the AG.

"Parliament must act as is its duty," he said.