Prime Minister Robert Abela yesterday reiterated his refusal to introduce legislation specifically designed to combat mafia-style organised crime, Repubblika said Tuesday.

His argument has remained unchanged for almost five years. In January 2022, when the Opposition presented a bill intended to implement recommendations of the Public Inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Robert Abela opposed anti-mafia provisions on the grounds that if Malta adopted such a law, it would somehow be declaring itself a "mafia state".

Yesterday, he essentially repeated the same argument and declared that as long as he remains Prime Minister, no such law will be introduced.

The problem is not whether Robert Abela is being consistent, Repubblika said. The problem is that for almost five years, the Prime Minister has continued to refuse to discuss the substance of the proposal. Nor has he allowed everything we have learned since then - including the disturbing evidence heard during the trial of Yorgen Fenech about the links between crime, money, business and political power - to lead him to reconsider whether the threat of organised crime requires a serious legislative response.

The Prime Minister's argument does not make sense either. Malta's Criminal Code criminalises genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Nobody thinks that because we have these laws, Malta is declaring itself a genocidal state or a country that habitually commits war crimes, the NGO added.

"We enact laws against criminal conduct precisely because we condemn it and because we want to give the State the tools to prevent, investigate and punish it. The same should apply to organised crime."

Other democracies have long adopted laws specifically designed to combat criminal organisations. In the United States, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, has been in force since 1970. Italy introduced the specific offence of "associazione di tipo Mafioso" in 1982.

"If the Prime Minister's problem is with the expression "anti-mafia law", we are prepared to discuss the name. If he prefers, we can call it a RICO law. We do not care what it is called. We care about what it does," it added.

Malta needs a law that effectively criminalises organised criminal activity and gives the State the tools it needs to confront the threat it poses to the free market, to democracy, and to the rights and safety of innocent people.

It is significant that yesterday the Prime Minister did not say that Maltese law already contains all the provisions being proposed and that a new law would therefore amount to unnecessary duplication. He did not say that the proposal is disproportionate. He did not say that it is unconstitutional or that it conflicts with any other law. His objection was that if we enact a law against mafia-style crime, someone might think badly of Malta.

The Prime Minister should find other ways to manage the public relations of Malta - or of his government. The solution is not to allow serious and dangerous crime to reign among us with impunity.

Nor is the Prime Minister right to dismiss the need for unexplained wealth orders by referring to the work already carried out by the Tax Compliance Unit and the FIAU. The model we have long advocated is based on the British system. An Unexplained Wealth Order is a civil investigative tool. Subject to legal criteria and safeguards, it allows the authorities to require a person to explain the legitimate origin of property or wealth when the conditions laid down by law are satisfied, without requiring the State first to secure a criminal conviction, Repubblika said.

This is a tool designed specifically for situations where conventional methods of criminal investigation and prosecution may not be sufficient to establish the source of suspicious wealth.

A mechanism of this kind, properly designed and administered, could be an invaluable tool in the fight against corruption, organised crime, money laundering and other serious financial crime.

Yesterday's parliamentary debate did not even begin to address the issues raised by the Public Inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Instead, it confirmed the attitude the Prime Minister has adopted towards the Inquiry for the past five years: formally saying that he respects its process and its work, while in practice ignoring many of its most important findings and recommendations, the statement continued.

Those recommendations were not written capriciously. They were the result of an extensive public examination of the circumstances that allowed a journalist investigating corruption and organised crime to be isolated, threatened and, ultimately, assassinated.

Five years later, important recommendations concerning organised crime and financial crime remain unimplemented.

The trial of Yorgen Fenech did not make those recommendations any less urgent. Whatever the verdict concerning the individual who stood accused, the evidence heard publicly in that courtroom gave Malta even more reason to confront immediately the corrosive links that can develop between enormous private wealth, criminality and political power.

Repubblika will therefore continue to insist on the implementation of the recommendations of the Public Inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. We insist on them because they are right. We insist on them because Malta needs them. And we insist on them because the fact that they remain unimplemented is an outstanding injustice and leaves weaknesses in our institutions that organised crime can continue to exploit with impunity.

It is not an anti-mafia law that makes Malta a mafia state. What should concern us is a Prime Minister who, almost five years after being called upon to introduce laws against mafia-style crime, still refuses even to seriously discuss how Malta should fight it, the statement concluded.