The undeclared purpose of Bill No. 125 ('the Bill') of 31 January 2025 is to minimise governmental accountability and embed therein the culture of impunity into Maltese Law. It is not dictated by the common good of society or by the public interest but by the selfish interest of a few who have turned the state of Malta into their fiefdom, the Maltese into their vassals, the government coffers into their own private wealth, and public property into their own possession. The Bill is anathema to what the three government appointed judges recommended in the report of the board of inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. It has now clearly emerged why government has procrastinated by all possible, conceivable, and imaginable means to implement the salutary recommendations contained therein, as to comply therewith, runs directly counter to the government practice of the institutionalisation of the culture of impunity, bad governance, and maladministration within the public administration. After all, the whole idea behind the commission of this report did not originate from the Maltese government but from European institutions. Joseph Muscat fought it tooth and nail, and successfully shelved it. His alter ego continuation scuttled its concrete implementation. Hence, all the past and ongoing government actions to bury that report for if the government was ever in good faith, it would have already implemented it ages ago. On their part, the toothless European institutions that have conceived it have failed to nurture it, and are like the proverbial three wise monkeys - they see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

What government is proposing to the House of Representatives to approve through the Bill is highly nefarious, subversive of the cardinal virtue of justice, and - undoubtedly - constitutes another devastating blow to the rule of law. Justice is 'the art of what is good and fair' and the just person must 'live honestly, not harm others, and render to each one's own'. But the Bill does exactly the opposite and these illustrious principles are not cherished by Robert Abela's Cabinet of Ministers. This fatal torpedoing of the rule of law measure queuing to be legislated upon is, to say the least, abysmal and oppressive once Malta is already sinking rock bottom deep in its non-observance of the rule of law.

Consider, for instance, that so-called 'independent' officers of the state are political appointees (e.g. the Chief Justice, Ombudsman, Auditor General, Attorney General, State Advocate, Public Service Commission, Electoral Commission, Broadcasting Authority, Employment Commission and others - none are appointed by an independent person or body of the state such as the Judicial Appointments Committee but by politicians); appointment to senior positions in the public administration requires either the Prime Minister's fiat or that of a person or body appointed by him; the investigation of corruption is not taken seriously with no timely prosecutions, if at all; state organs, institutions and officers are complicit in debasing the Constitution of Malta; the judiciary at times lends more than a helping hand to government to immerse in the netherworld proceedings instituted by public-spirited citizens in the name of a law that is unjust; the least possible government-held information is disclosed to the media to exercise their legitimate and democratic role of investigative journalism,  reporting on government maladministration, bad governance, and corruption; administrative secrecy outmanoeuvres the Freedom of Information Act; whistle blowers are persecuted instead of listened to; amnesties and pardons are dished out galore; and the list goes on and on. Clearly, we are living in a dysfunctional state well rooted in a mafia state.

As these and other measures are, in government's view, not enough to discredit the rule of law, it has decided to administer the latest and hopefully mortal coup de grâce to the rule of law in Malta auguring that this time round it will be definitively and forcefully smashed through the Bill that constitutes a disgrace to any government that has a shred of respect for itself, the democratic credentials of Malta, good governance, political accountability, and the rule of law. Through the Bill, a mafia state will be institutionalised. It will be declared a historic feat for the government to be proud of once the powers of darkness will be defeated. We might also get a new public holiday in remembrance thereof.

What the Bill will soon successfully achieve is to stonewall or block outright all possible remedial avenues for a public-spirited citizen to request an independent magisterial inquiry to preserve evidence of wrongdoing and criminal acts and to uphold criminal justice for that is the exact main juridical nature of magisterial inquiries. Once the Bill is enacted into law - and I entertain no doubt that all government ministers and government back benchers will toe the party line and vote in its favour in the same way that all Cabinet ministers in the past unconditionally supported government measures tainted by allegations of corruption, fraud, and abuse of power notwithstanding all the reputational harm that it continues to bring to the country - it will no longer be possible for public spirited citizens, that is, persons who put the common good - and not their self-interest - at the forefront of their political agenda, to have recourse to such mechanism to discover the truth. For through its actions, this government has expressed its aversion to the truth, is preparing to outlaw it through the Bill, thereby declaring truth government's worst enemy. Suffice it to see how government repetitively continues by its deeds to crush and overkill Daphne Caruana Galizia - her 'wrong' lay in attempting to discover the truth by uncovering the illicit operations of a mafia state - by not only not implementing the aforesaid 3 judges report but by continuing with censorable misrule of law measures as though no wrong doing has ever happened before. Yet this government has not learnt, nor does it want to learn, from its own past mistakes.

The current cabinet of ministers, government MPs, and the Labour Party want to slam completely the door in the face of public-spirited citizens from seeking justice and the truth. This fascist, illiberal, and retrograde government initiative propels Malta backwards not forward in so far as the enhancement of the rule of law is concerned. There is nothing progressive, emulative, or laudable in it. Worst still, the structures of the Labour Party have once again failed to rein in their leadership to their senses. It is therefore imperative that the European Commission addresses urgently these matters as, so far, it has taken no concrete and effective steps to reverse all those measures adopted by this government that institutionalise the culture of impunity and misrule of law, sometimes even with the connivance and complicity of the parliamentary opposition that will benefit therefrom when in government, that drive for the umpteenth time another nail in the coffin of the rule of law in Malta. Unfortunately, the European Commission is, in this respect, a paper mill, extremely capable in dishing out reports, documents, and papers on the rule of law in member states but crassly incapable at seeing its own recommendations made therein go through, electing instead to adopt a reactionary - not a pre-emptive - approach to enforce Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union that elevates the rule of law to an EU value, though, it appears, not in the case of Malta that seems to be exempted by an unwritten EU Commission practice not to hold Malta to account on its excruciating misrule of law record.

It is not the purpose of this one-off article to carry out a detailed analysis of the Bill as space and time do not permit. So I will restrict myself to only two crucial points to demonstrate why democracy is at stake and why the much vaunted government bill is a recipe for failure, moving Malta in the wrong direction of unaccountability and misrule of law where the public administration will henceforth not be held responsible for criminal acts when the Police fail to act. Let me explain why.

If the main purpose of a magisterial inquiry has always been to preserve culpable evidence, why should a public-spirited citizen have first to file a complaint with the Commissioner of Police, wait for six months for the latter to take no action at all, and then seek the assistance of a judge to order the initiation of a magisterial inquiry to gather evidence before it is destroyed? By the time the six-month period elapses together with the endless length of time for a judge to appoint the case for hearing, to dispose of all the dilatory preliminary pleas raised by the State Advocate on behalf of the government so that justice is never served, the time taken by the judge to dispose of all those pleas simply intended to allow the evidence to be in the meantime erased so that the criminal culprits can run scot free, and eventually come round to deliver judgment, by that time all evidence would surely have perished thanks to the Commissioner of Police's inaction, his legal advisor's - the Attorney General - lack of directing the Commissioner to act, the State Advocate's procrastination in endless pleas to abort those court proceedings, and the judge in the Criminal Court's lengthy delay in deciding the matter. Criminal justice and the preservation of evidence are not served by prolonging procedures but by speeding them up. Clearly, justice delayed is justice denied and at what cost to the proper administration of criminal justice?

The Bill institutionalises the culture of impunity with the Commissioner of Police, the Attorney General, and the State Advocate ending up on the wrong side of the law - supporting the perpetrator not prosecuting him/her. This is nothing but a travesty of justice. It cannot be otherwise for the decision to appoint and remove these three officers is taken either by the Prime Minister or by the House of Representatives, that is, not by an independent organ of the state such as the Judicial Appointments Committee but by a political person (the President acting on the advice of the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister directly) or a political body (the House of Representatives).

How can one ever trust the Commissioner of Police when a crime is committed by his superiors or others who control him once he is (a) a political appointee; (b) not an independent officer of state; (c) answerable to government; and (d) whose salary, conditions of work, bonuses, and allowances are all decided by the government of the day? In practice, it will be either the Home Affairs Minister or the Prime Minister who will decide whether a magisterial inquiry requested by a public-spirited citizen will be initiated or not with the Commissioner acting as their figure head. With such types of inquiries blocked, the government will return back to its comfort zone by employing the Commissioner as a ploy to deny a public-spirited person the opening of a magisterial inquiry. The latter can always act under the pretext that the public-spirited citizen has not satisfied the threshold required by the Bill of the culpable evidence required for an inquiry to be commenced, a function that is today carried out by an independent magistrate but tomorrow by an executive officer whose loyalty is not to justice or to truth but to his own boss.

Yet the Bill, to ensure that any evidence of a crime by the public administration is destroyed so that it cannot reach the judiciary to preserve it for the purposes of a prosecution, will subject a public-spirited citizen to the whims and caprice of an officer entirely dependent on his own minister and Prime Minister. Essentially, the Bill exempts criminals occupying public office from criminal responsibility and liability, and prosecution, whilst encouraging them through this carte blanche amnesty given before the crime is committed to continue unabated with their criminal activity to the detriment of the state. In the meantime, state coffers and property will continue to be legally pilfered until there is nothing left to go by. This is a form of an anticipatory amnesty. In other words, the real purpose of a magisterial inquiry is turned absolutely on its head.

Second, how can a public-spirited citizen provide evidence of the commission of a crime to the Commissioner of Police when s/he does not have combined together police powers, powers of the Attorney General and of an Inquiring Magistrate: to arrest; search and confiscate objects; take fingerprints, footprints, photographs and video recordings; seize, preserve, catalogue, and store assets derived from criminal activity; carry out laboratory tests; appoint court experts; copy hard disks and other computer equipment; crack passwords to access social media and other data storage devices; access bank accounts of a person suspected of committing a crime; communicate with foreign prosecutors and courts; take testimony on oath locally and abroad; communicate with other foreign Police authorities through Interpol and Europol; shadow suspects, intercept their communications, transcribe their conversations; carry out a controlled delivery; etc.

Who are the end losers of this Bill? Surely not corrupt officers of the public administration who gain impunity for their crimes-to-be, who will never be investigated for fraud, misappropriation, bribery, and not carrying out their lawful duties. It is the proper administration of justice, the independence of the judiciary from government interference in their judicial business, rectitude, integrity, honesty, good governance, good administration, openness, transparency, accountability, and Malta's international reputation for fighting crime that will soon be the end losers. It is now more than ever before appropriate to label Malta as a state hijacked by the mafia. The once upon a time right - albeit its deficiencies - that a public-spirited citizen enjoyed to hold state officials accountable for criminal activity will soon be relegated to the annals of history, torn asunder institutionalising - instead of fighting - the culture of impunity in the Criminal Code of Malta. Bill No 125 is the icing on the cake of the rule of law coffin.

Kevin Aquilina is Professor of Law at the Faculty of Laws, University of Malta