One would have expected Robert Abela to announce some decision or action he would be taking in relation to the inquiry. Maybe he would inform us about the public officials mentioned and announce that he had requested each of their resignations. In what is shaping up to be a big moment for Malta, one might have expected Robert Abela to reassure the population that he had a plan to ensure stability across the country.

Instead, we got the Prime Minister, flanked by his Justice Minister, ranting and raving about establishments he can’t name or define and about how he regrets giving more powers to the judiciary while half-threatening to take them back. Not childish (or despotic) at all.

As far as we can tell, all the Prime Minister sought to accomplish with his address to the nation was to rile up his vote base while doing all he could to discredit the judiciary and derail this very serious legal case that could define Malta for years to come.

Given that there was very little actual substance communicated, I thought it would be worth exploring some of the more interesting things he said, both because they’re worth documenting but also because they are in many senses fascinating.

Abela started his press conference by telling us that inquiries are not the same as a court and that their findings aren’t legally conclusive. Funny how we were told the opposite after Egrant. He then made it a point to stress that inquiries don’t need very strong evidence to recommend action against someone.

Sounding more like a defence lawyer than a Prime Minister, Abela told us that it was entirely possible that it would transpire that despite the charges against the accused, the evidence against them was of a degree that made it “improbable or impossible” to prove guilt.

While that is all well and good, it is also worth remembering, as the Prime Minister said a number of times, that this inquiry cost the taxpayer €11 million and took over four years to complete. That doesn’t guarantee its findings are bulletproof, but it neither does it explain why would start from a position of questioning them.

In fact, today Abela went further than he has so far because he questioned whether the magistrate had presumed those charged guilty before starting her work, in addition to casting doubt on the credibility of the foreign court experts appointed to assist with the case.

“I’m not in a position to discuss whether their presumption of innocence was safeguarded and I won’t fall into the trap of suggesting it wasn’t,” Abela said, clearly intent on doing both.

 

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So, the Prime Minister who hasn’t seen the inquiry seems to already have an opinion about whether people it names were treated fairly by it.

He also told us that some of the accused had not even been heard by the inquiry despite being charged and that this was a breach of their “right to be heard.” A reasonable enough position, except again, just because the magistrate chose not to have someone testify doesn’t necessarily mean that person’s rights have been breached. It might be unethical, sure, but presumably within the magistrate’s right, a right we have no real reason to believe she did not exercise responsibly.

“If this is the case, I am disappointed because the course of justice, the judicial process has been allowed to descend to this level,” Abela continued. “I don’t want to act as the defence lawyer for any public servants, but if this is true, naturally, that injustice needs to be remedied the moment judicial proceedings commence or during these judicial proceedings. In our country, the rule of law reigns supreme.”

It would be interesting to know what exactly Abela means when he says that the injustice needs to be rectified. As he explained so expertly at the start of his statement, the inquiry is not a court and it is only an investigation, so anyone charged as a result of it will have all the rights that our laws provide to those accused before our courts. What does he mean when he says it should be rectified? Does he mean they should be allowed to give their version of events? If so, it’s a bit of a silly statement because that is how court works. Or does he mean that the magistrate they appear before should decide that there is actually no case against them and let them off the hook? Surely, he, a sitting Prime Minister of an EU country, isn’t suggesting to a magistrate what action they should take in relation to a suspect.

Over the course of his address, Abela repeatedly urged the Attorney General to publish the inquiry report. Again, it would be interesting to hear from the Attorney General whether Abela has actually made a formal request for it to be published, if she intends to accept it, and on what grounds. Her predecessor is on record saying that he had recognized that publishing the conclusions of the Egrant inquiry was in the public interest, primarily because it related to the Prime Minister so its not like there’s no precedent.

Does Abela really want the inquiry to be published, or is he bluffing and trying to make us believe he does while he quietly reads through it himself and plots a path forward for him and his party?

 

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Another of Abela’s more interesting talking points was the fact that, according to him, some people were charged “simply because of the role they held.” I don’t want to jump the gun and make assumptions about the findings, but from where I’m standing, that’s sort of what accountability sounds like. What it feels like Abela is saying is: “everyone knows that civil servants don’t really have a choice in going along with all the outrageous things we demand from them, so they shouldn’t face any legal consequences.”

The rest of the press conference was pretty much Abela talking about the establishment, a word I’m told he used 47 times this evening. Much like Bibi Netanyahu’s use of the word ‘antisemitic,’ the idea of the big bad establishment has been used to the point that it no longer has any meaning.

I would have had no problem believing in an influential PN establishment trying to put spokes in Labour’s proverbial wheels ten years ago, but not today. Whether he likes it or not, Robert Abela is now the embodiment of the establishment. He leads a party that has been at the helm for a decade, a lawyer by profession and the son of a former President and a long-time Labour politician. More crucially he is the country’s Prime Minister and as such bears the responsibility for ensuring that we don’t all collectively come out of this looking like backward, third-world nation.

There is a limit to how much goodwill a country can be afforded, and it’s certainly not a good look for a Prime Minister who spent his first year in office enacting rule of law reforms and proclaiming Malta’s commitment to a new beginning, only to now express regret for those reforms and blatantly undermine them with his tantrums.

Robert Abela needs to decide whether he wants to be Prime Minister or defence lawyer to his old friends. He’s more than entitled to feel more comfortable with the latter but if that’s the case, he needs to resign first.