Justice Minister criticises request for gagging order in hospitals criminal case, PN decries Attard’s ‘condemnable attack’
Justice Minister, Jonathan Attard, has criticised the request made by the prosecution for a gagging order in the hospitals corruption case on Tuesday, saying that this is disproportionate.
The court order relates to the court case where former Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, his former Chief of Staff, Keith Schembri, former Minister, Konrad Mizzi, and others stand charged with crimes related to the hospitals deal. The first court sitting had taken place on Tuesday.
Speaking on the Labour Party radio station, Attard said that he had a duty to express himself on the court order, while respecting the rights of both the prosecution and the defence.
The order was even more disproportionate given the leaks from the inquiry, he said.
Attard said that he understood that the prosecution did not want a trial by media, but he felt that the prosecution should also make sure that the source of the leakages was properly investigated so as to safeguard the independence of the judicial process.
The Nationalist Party later rebuked Justice Minister Jonathan Attard’s comments. The party statement also called for Attard to stop harming the country’s justice system.
In a statement released by PN’s Justice spokesperson, Karol Aquilina, the Nationalist Party labelled Attard’s comments as a “condemnable attack” against the concerned magistrate and the prosecutor working in Court against the likes of Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and others.
The PN said that Minister Attard, through the comments he had made on One Radio on Wednesday, has become the country’s first Minister for Justice to “publicly and shamelessly” take fire against a prosecutor and a magistrate serving the State. “It is evident that Minister Jonathan Attard is unhappy with those who are being loyal to the people and to the oath they swore”, the Nationalist Party stated. “He is trying to interfere and influence to protect those who are being accused of having committed the biggest fraud in the face of the Maltese and Gozitan people.”
Aquilina said that “this behaviour is unacceptable in a democracy and is totally condemnable”. He also reiterated that this court case is referencing “the biggest case of corruption that our country has ever seen”.
This statement concluded that Minister Attard has shown once again, “as he has shown on several other occasions”, that he is not placing the interest of the State and its institutions first, Aquilina said. Aquilina said that Attard “is rendering himself complicit with Joseph Muscat in the attack orchestrated and coordinated by him and Robert Abela on the judiciary and on all those who are working for justice in our country”.
In response, Justice Minister Attard said that Aquilina “doesn’t need to go far to know who really attacked our country’s institutions. He knows who slaughters with his words, and worse with his actions, the Police Commissioner, the Attorney General and certain adjudicators. Just this morning Repubblika attacked the decision by two magistrates who did not accept their request.”
“With arrogance and a sense of superiority, he pretends that the observations I made with the utmost respect, I don’t have a right to make. What I said today is that the request by the prosecution for a number of people to be stopped from expressing themselves was disproportionate. Karol Aquilina pretended that I would not speak. As he believes only he and his friends of the establishment can talk”, the Minister for Justice said.