The Yorgen Fenech trial has brought into sharper focus something that Malta has known for years but has rarely seen exposed in such detail: the extraordinary proximity between politicians and officials who form part of the government and powerful business interests.
Connections between people in business and those in public life are not, in themselves, suspicious. Malta is a small country and inevitably produces overlapping circles. Business people will know politicians, civil servants, and officials. Politicians meet entrepreneurs, employers and representatives of different sectors. Government needs to communicate with business, and business needs to understand government policy.
But the evidence and testimony heard during the trial have provided a disturbing insight into how close relationships between people who hold political power, people who have money, and people who operate within the machinery of the State can create an environment in which favours are sought, favours are granted, and the normal barriers between public duty and private interest become dangerously thin.
This is not about suggesting that every conversation, meeting or friendship between a politician and a businessman is improper. It is about recognising that public office carries responsibilities that are fundamentally different from those attached to private relationships. A minister, government official, regulator or police officer cannot behave as though he or she is dealing with a friend or business associate when exercising powers that belong to the State.
The danger comes when some people realise that having the right contacts can open doors that remain firmly closed to everyone else.
That perception alone is damaging. If citizens believe that access to a minister matters more than the law, that knowing a senior official is more useful than following the proper procedure, or that having friends in the police can protect someone from scrutiny, confidence in the entire system begins to erode.
Institutions are not strengthened simply because they exist. They are strengthened when people believe that they operate according to clear rules and that those rules apply equally to everyone.
A citizen who has no political connections, no wealth, and no influence must be able to approach a public institution believing that he or she will receive the same treatment as someone who is politically powerful or commercially successful. A business owner must know that contracts, permits, and decisions will be determined according to the rules rather than according to friendships. A person accused of wrongdoing must know that the law will be applied fairly. And the victim of a crime must be able to trust that investigators will pursue the truth wherever it leads.
The situation becomes even more serious when relationships extend into the police and the criminal underworld. Police officers are entrusted with enormous powers precisely because society expects them to exercise those powers impartially and within the law. Their responsibility is not to protect friends, political allies, or influential acquaintances. It is to protect the public and enforce the law.
If some police officers are perceived, or shown, to have close relationships with politicians or people involved in criminal activity, the damage goes far beyond the individuals concerned. It casts a shadow over the institution itself.
In a nutshell, regulators must be able to regulate powerful companies. Tax authorities must be able to pursue people with political connections. The police must be able to investigate politicians, businessmen and other police officers when there are grounds to do so. Government departments must be able to refuse requests that are improper, even when those requests come from people with influence.
None of this is excessive. It is the minimum that citizens should expect from a functioning democracy.
The Fenech trial should therefore not be viewed solely through the circumstances surrounding the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. It should also force Malta to examine the culture that allows public officials, politicians, businessmen and people associated with criminality to move within the same circles with such ease.
There is nothing wrong with knowing people. There is everything wrong with allowing those relationships to determine how the State operates.
The most dangerous consequence of this culture is not necessarily that one individual obtains one favour or another avoids scrutiny. It is what happens to public confidence when people begin to conclude that the system is designed to work differently for those who have the right friends.
The law must be the connection that matters most.
When personal relationships become a substitute for rules, institutions cease to look impartial. And once people stop believing that the same rules apply to everyone, the damage extends far beyond any individual case.
In Malta, it seems that who you know matters more than what you have done. The closer the relationship between power, money, politics, business and criminality becomes, the greater the need for transparency, accountability, and genuinely independent scrutiny.
Public confidence is an essential part of the functioning of the State.
Institutions must therefore be able to demonstrate, in practice and not merely in words, that they act without fear or favour. They must be strong enough to investigate their friends, confront the powerful, and pursue wrongdoing wherever it leads.
If they cannot do that, citizens will quite understandably begin to ask whether the institutions exist to serve the public or to protect those who have managed to get close enough to power.