There is a phrase we hear too often in Malta: move on. Move on from the anger, move on from the division, move on from Daphne, move on from 2017. But a country does not move on simply because enough time has passed. It moves on by confronting what happened, answering the questions that remain and ensuring that the failures of the past are not allowed to become the habits of the future.

The acquittal of Yorgen Fenech has understandably caused anger and disappointment, and for Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family it has reopened wounds that should never have been theirs to carry for this long. But anger cannot be our only response, and it certainly cannot become an attack on the courts. A jury heard the evidence and delivered a verdict. In a democracy, that verdict must be respected.

The prosecution has announced that it will appeal the acquittal, and that process must also be respected. An appeal against an acquittal is not simply a request to substitute a conviction for the jury’s verdict; it is governed by specific legal grounds concerning the trial and its proceedings. That is what the rule of law demands.

But respecting a verdict does not mean rewriting history. It does not erase the findings of the public inquiry. It does not erase the failures of the State. It does not erase the culture of impunity and institutional failures identified in the inquiry, nor does it remove Malta’s obligation to learn from what happened. That is where the national conversation must now go: not backwards into tribal warfare, but forward towards reform, accountability and stronger institutions.

For too long, Daphne’s assassination has been treated as though Malta must choose between two extremes. Either question what happened and be accused of attacking the country, or remain silent and call that patriotism. That is a false choice.

Real patriotism is wanting your country to be better. It is refusing to accept that institutions can fail and nothing changes. It is insisting that Malta emerges from one of the darkest periods in its modern history stronger than it entered it.

Almost nine years have passed since Daphne was murdered. Nine years of court cases, inquiries, revelations, resignations, protests and political conflict. Behind all of that was a family that never asked to become the centre of Malta’s national trauma.

A husband lost his wife. Children lost their mother. Parents lost their daughter. Sisters lost their sister. Whatever our politics, whatever our interpretation of events, that human reality should never be allowed to disappear beneath the noise.

But this is also bigger than one family. Malta itself was wounded. Trust was damaged. Confidence in institutions was weakened. Our international reputation suffered. And perhaps most damaging of all, a suspicion took root that power, money and connections can sometimes carry more weight than accountability. No healthy democracy can allow that suspicion to become permanent.

So the response now cannot be vengeance, political theatre or politicians pretending to be judges. Nor can it be another round of Labour versus Nationalist while the substance disappears beneath the shouting.

What Malta needs is something harder and more serious: reform, accountability, competence, and independence. We need institutions that work, police who can investigate without fear or favour, prosecutors with the resources to take on difficult cases, courts protected from political pressure and public officials who understand that office is a duty, not a shield.

We also need stronger boundaries between political power and commercial power, and a culture in which journalists can investigate the powerful without fear that doing their jobs will expose them to unacceptable risks. These should not be Opposition demands or Government concessions. They should be democratic basics on which the whole country can agree.

And there is already important work that must continue. Following the Fenech trial, the Criminal Court ordered that testimony heard during the proceedings be handed over to the Police Commissioner so that investigators can determine whether other people may be liable to criminal proceedings. The evidence is also being transmitted to two ongoing magisterial inquiries. The verdict, therefore, is not the end of every question raised by the evidence heard in court.

The public inquiry gave Malta a roadmap. The real question is whether we have followed it with the seriousness and urgency it deserved. Because there is another danger in all of this, and that is time.

Time exhausts people. Time dulls outrage. Time turns unresolved questions into background noise. Eventually, someone says that enough years have passed and the country should simply move on.

But time passing is not the same as justice being done. Silence is not closure. Fatigue is not reconciliation. Forgetting is not healing.

Malta does need to close this chapter. No country can live forever inside its darkest moments. But we have to close it properly.

We close it when the necessary reforms are implemented, when institutions are stronger than they were before, when every credible avenue has been investigated and when accountability follows the evidence wherever that evidence leads. We close it when journalists know that the State will defend their freedom, and when Daphne’s family can look at this country and know that Malta genuinely learned from what happened.

That is what moving on should mean. Everything else is simply moving away from the problem.

The easiest political response at a moment like this is to weaponise public anger. The harder response is to turn that anger into purpose. That is what serious politics should do.

Because this moment is not ultimately about one verdict. It is about whether Malta has the courage to finish the work it began after 16th October, 2017. It is about whether we really believe in stronger institutions, whether we really believe that nobody is above scrutiny and whether we really believe that the lessons of that period were learned.

Respect for the verdict and the pursuit of accountability are not mutually exclusive.

The country has heard enough words. What Malta needs now is proof. Proof that reforms matter. Proof that institutions matter. Proof that accountability matters. Proof that “never again” was more than a phrase repeated at moments of national grief.

For Daphne’s family, for every journalist who continues to scrutinise those in power, for every citizen who wants to believe in this country and for the generations who will inherit it, Malta must eventually move on.

But first, Malta must move forward.

Annabelle Cilia - Assistant Whip and Spokesperson for Employment