PN withdraws from police chief grilling process

The Nationalist Party, in protest, won’t be participating in the parliamentary committee which is due to scrutinise newly-nominated police commissioner Angelo Gafà.

The PN said on Tuesday that, despite there having been put in place a new process for appointing the police commissioner, in effect nothing had changed.

It said that the police chief would have to go through a one-year probation period, during which it would be easy to remove him if he tried to investigate certain corruption cases.

Gafà, who is currently CEO of the police force, was formally nominated by Cabinet on Monday.

He will now face a grilling at the hands of MPs, which, following the PN’s withdrawal, will only be from the Labour Party.

The parliamentary committee could have technically stopped the nomination, but the government enjoys a majority of representatives. The grilling will be held in public.

The method of appointment was changed earlier this year. A call for applications was issued and candidates were interviewed by the Public Service Commission.

The commission then gave Cabinet a shortlist of two names.

Prior to the law being changed, the police commissioner was chosen solely by the prime minister with no call for applications and no grilling.

The government has insisted that the new process makes the appointment more transparent.