Police Commissioner says his contract has been recommended for renewal
Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà has said that his contract has been recommended for renewal by the government.
Speaking to journalist Julian Delia from the Critical Angle Project outside the law courts on Tuesday, Gafà confirmed that his contract as Police Commissioner had elapsed, but said that the indications were that it was set to be renewed.
“I received an email from the Permanent Secretary which says that they had made a recommendation for my contract to be renewed,” Gafà said.
Gafà was appointed as Police
Commissioner on 23 June 2020, and was the first to be appointed using a new system which saw scrutiny from Parliament’s Public Appointments Committee.
At the time, the PN had boycotted the meeting in protest of the manner of the appointment, even though it had been welcomed by the Venice Commission.
More recently, the PN had said that Gafà’s contract should not be renewed, pointing towards what it terms to be a number of grave shortcomings which had “led to a lack of justice and enforcement of the law, as well as great frustration for serious officers who wanted to perform their duties.”
Gafa has also been on the receiving end of criticism from civil society movements, with the NGO Repubblika being at the forefront of this. The NGO has consistently said, particularly in the past weeks, that Gafà is obstructing justice in high-profile cases.
Honorary Repubblika president Robert Aquilina reacted to the news of Gafà’s seemingly impending renewal by describing it as “bad news for the police and for Malta.”