Earlier today, anti-corruption activist Robert Aquilina’s appeal in the case challenging the police commissioner to charge former Pilatus Bank officials was rejected by the criminal court.
In a lengthy 71-page decree, judge Consuelo Scerri Herrera rejected Aquilina’s appeal to avoid the risk of what is known as ‘double jeopardy’.
‘Double jeopardy’ is a legal principle that refers to the possibility that the same individuals – in this case, the former Pilatus officials against whom criminal charges were recommended by an inquiring magistrate – could be charged twice for the same crime, once by the police, and another by the attorney general.
“This court is of the opinion that a person should be accused of all charges emanating from the same facts all at once, not in a piecemeal manner,” the court’s decree reads.
Aquilina’s appeal followed a prior sentence handed down by magistrate Nadine Sant Lia. In that case, the magistrate rejected Aquilina’s challenge proceedings against the police commissioner on the basis that Aquilina should not have had access to the inquiry’s conclusions in the first place.
Aquilina’s challenge proceedings were based on information that was leaked to him, revealing the conclusions of a magisterial inquiry that was previously kept under wraps. Those conclusions had listed five former Pilatus executives and recommended criminal charges against them.
Four years after those conclusions were made known to the office of the attorney general, neither that office nor the police have charged these individuals. Instead, attorney general Victoria Buttigieg had issued an order to not prosecute two of those five officials. In spite of the fact that Aquilina’s information was proven to be correct, the magistrate had dismissed his arguments as “hearsay.”
Besides refusing Aquilina’s request to force the police commissioner to press these charges, magistrate Sant Lia had additionally ordered the commissioner to investigate Aquilina’s sources and discern how a sensitive, confidential document like an inquiry report was being shown to unauthorised third parties.
This website has previously highlighted the chilling effect such a sentence automatically has on any sources considering blowing the whistle on abuses with the public sector. Today’s sentence effectively means that Aquilina may now face a police investigation for publishing findings that were shared with him in confidence.
In its sentence today, the criminal court decreed that the attorney general is legally responsible for prosecuting these former bank executives, not the police commissioner.
In that sense, the risk of double jeopardy could arise if a judgement ordering the police commissioner to prosecute were to be handed down today.
In last week’s hearing, lawyers representing the office of the attorney general had raised a similar argument, stating that such a scenario would effectively prevent any future prosecutions that might be initiated by the office of the attorney general.
One thing that remains unclear is why the attorney general has refused to prosecute these officials, given that its representatives have never clearly stated why these officials were not charged in spite of the inquiring magistrate’s conclusions.
When considered in the context of the lack of successful corruption convictions for high-profile individuals and politicians, this failure to prosecute has led to universally accepted conclusion that attorney general Victoria Buttigieg and police commissioner Angelo Gafa’ are compromised and unwilling to fulfill their duties.
The lengthy legal saga promises to be far from over, however.
In a statement published shortly after the sentence was handed down, Aquilina noted that a separate case previously filed against the attorney general’s decision to not prosecute two Pilatus officials now takes on greater significance.
Besides filing challenge proceedings against the police commissioner, Aquilina had also filed a request for a judicial review about the attorney general’s decision.
While the police commissioner can be ordered to prosecute if a magistrate finds that he has abdicated his duty to do so, a request for a judicial review can only determine whether the attorney general’s decision was justified or not. Ultimately, the decision to prosecute rests with the attorney general.
“Our battle in court about the Pilatus inquiry now continues with the case we had opened against attorney general Victoria Buttigieg, a case which has now acquired more importance than ever before. Three years ago we had anticipated this possibility which now became reality, and so, we had also initiated proceedings against the attorney general,” Aquilina wrote in his brief statement.
“As is known by everyone, Gafa’ and Buttigieg do not care about what magistrate Ian Farrugia had ordered them to do, and from all the individuals mentioned by him (in his conclusions), they only charged just one person,” the statement continues.
“They gave two bank officials a get out of jail free card while three others, among them Ali Sadr (the former owner of the bank), were allowed to roam free and enjoy their wealth as if nothing ever happened,” he added.
It is becoming increasingly evident that any justifiable outcome concerning this Government, this Attorney General and this Commissioner of Police must become the responsibility of the only judge that matters – the general public.