A tribute to Isabelle Bonnici

Before that unforgettable Corradino site tragedy and fatality on 3 December, 2022, involving Jean Paul Sofia, his mother Isabelle had already gone through a period of great hardship and suffering. She had already lost another son two years before Jean Paul was born. Her first son, whom she had also named Jean Paul Sofia, died five days after birth because he was born prematurely.

Isabelle’s story is one of resilience and courage in the face of adversity and unspeakable devastation. She did not cower. Instead, she evolved into a warrior for justice. It should help us understand and shape our own similar journey in activism. Hers is a remarkable journey in the aftermath of that tragedy, a living, gripping tale of one strong and courageous woman’s quest to find those responsible for the horrible and untimely death of her only child, an illustration of the inner strengths unearthed by a mother confronted with unspeakable sorrow.

A journey during which she is grounded by her love for her lost only child, for at its core, hers is also a love story amidst the inherent pain and heartbreak she went through and is still going through.

One might think that when people see her, they think she’s done so well; she’s been so strong. But I don’t think that’s the case, as, I believe, behind all the scenes we today re-enact, she was a wreck. We only need to remember how she recounted the months she spent spearheading the fraught and complicated quest for justice.

She fought and campaigned in search of the whole truth behind her son’s tragedy at a time when the police and the justice system failed so dramatically to do so.

Despite the grief and despair that most of us would ever be able to imagine, despite ongoing family responsibilities and an increasingly strained relationship with the authorities, and despite an overwhelming lack of support from the systems in place supposedly to protect our shared communities, Isabelle pursued.

But that pursuit came with incomprehensible, though disappointingly unsurprising, criticism.

When we’re shown footage from press conferences, interview appearances and court hearings, Isabelle is incredible. She holds a level of command and control that the best of us could only dream of having, even without the weight of such huge grief on our shoulders. Isabelle speaks clearly and fervently about what happened to her son before and on that fatal day in December, where the system failed, and why she won’t rest until all those responsible for this preventable tragedy pay for what they’ve done.

Retracing Isabelle's experiences in light of the findings and recommendations of the Jean Paul Sofia public inquiry reminds us how depressingly little had changed from the time that he lost his life to date: 15 whole months wasted just like that, with nothing learned from that tragedy while, in the meantime, construction deaths and accidents continued unabated.

But the change that, hopefully, will be affected by the public inquiry’s conclusions will not have happened without Isabelle's determination to keep going at whatever cost.

Isabelle is one of the most formidable people in recent Maltese history, and she symbolises an innate resilience within grieving parents as well as the wider community that we can only hope continues to resonate deep enough to affect further change as all those finding themselves in her situation and plight carry her fight for justice forward.

Before this latest public inquiry, public inquiries failed to promote meaningful public participation because they relied on shallow forms of participation that did not challenge the status quo or prompt radical policy change. But, thanks to Isabelle’s perseverance and insistence on a public inquiry, this inquiry, chaired by the Ombudsman, Judge Emeritus Joseph Zammit McKeon, might well signal the start of public inquiries having the potential to be flourishing sites of deliberative democracy.

Hopefully, from now on, public inquiries will be well-suited to become spaces of meaningful engagement and deliberative democracy. To accomplish this, public inquiry procedures must be purposefully crafted to be inclusive of the public they are seeking to engage. Without meaningful public participation, public inquiries are merely another state-created policy-making centre, lacking citizen input. If the purpose of public inquiries is to investigate tragedies and propose recommendations that will be supported in their implementation, the public must be involved.

We now know that existing policy-making forums involved in the construction industry are incapable or unequipped to deal with practically any issue.

In the aftermath of this public inquiry, all building and construction regulatory authorities should be hanging their heads in shame at their failure to identify and tackle the failings identified by the inquiry itself. While it is a leap forward to now have a set of recommendations that, as promised by the government, will be swiftly and accurately implemented, at the same time we cannot forget all the loss of life and damage that have been caused throughout these last years and for which we cannot make amends.

The public inquiry that Isabelle painstakingly managed to force the government to launch determined a clear sign that basic oversight of our critical industries simply isn’t happening. Undoubtedly, it is just the latest evidence that the regulatory regimes that oversee large parts of the Maltese economy and society are failing.

Jean Paul’s demise and the consequent permanent grief within his parents are just one of many other disastrous unintended consequences that occur as the direct consequence of poor intentional choices by our top political decision-makers.