I have written before about politics with heart, about a brand of leadership grounded in humanity, compassion and understanding, because behind every vote there is a human being, a beating heart filled with hopes, dreams and real worries. That was always the mantra I pushed during my campaign, and in which I still believe wholeheartedly.

This week, however, I found myself reflecting on what the same principle represents within the realm of justice. Because if politics with heart means seeing the human being behind every vote, then in justice too, we must keep our humanity at the centre of the justice system.

Before anything else, Daphne Caruana Galizia was a person, a mother of three, a wife, daughter, sister and member of her community. Someone who made breakfast for her family, answered emails and worried about ordinary things, in between doing the very dangerous work of levelling a large shiny mirror in the face of this country, in a way that made the comfortable, very uncomfortable indeed.

Behind the jury, the gruesome murder, the verdict and the entire investigation, are the beating hearts of a family who has now had to carry their grief for far too long, and which remain today without justice.

I have spoken often about the disenfranchisement growing among our young people, and how they are drifting away from the debates that matter, and most worryingly from the hope that tomorrow will be better than today. I said before the election how this worries me greatly. Sadly, in the past weeks, we have given our young people even more reason to grow cynical and lose their hope in this country.

Because what are we asking young people to believe in, when officials caught discussing business with the very man on trial for murder face no real reckoning, when one of the investigated parties is privy to sensitive information way before it even makes it to the right destination, and when the Prime Minister's answer to all of it is little more than a shrug? Sadly, that is the brand of politics that has stopped even pretending to see the people it is meant to serve.

This is why, on Wednesday evening, so many ordinary people stood in Great Siege Square; parents, pensioners, teenagers who were still children when Daphne was killed and anyone with an ounce of sense of what is right, to make their voices heard, standing up to be counted.

They gathered because something human in them needed to say, out loud, together "we see her, we have not forgotten her, and we are still waiting for our leaders to see her too."

True leadership is measured by whether people feel seen, recognised, heard and understood beyond the electoral season, and justice is no different. Real justice for Daphne means real reform of how magisterial inquiries are triggered, of how whistleblowers and journalists are protected, of how quickly a police file involving people at the top of our institutions actually goes somewhere. Anything less is just an insult to Daphne's memory.

I believe we can build a country where accountability is not treated as an inconvenience and where institutions meant to protect us, actually do that. It isn't a lot to ask.

Marilena Gauci is the Nationalist Party's spokesperson for the film industry