Politicians should not decide on pardons, Repubblika says

Civil society group Repubblika has said the power to pardon witnesses involved in a crime should not be decided by cabinet but by the Attorney General.  

In a statement on Sunday, Repubblika said that it wants this “outdated” part of the constitution to be changed.  

“It is our view that the decision to grant immunity in offences for individuals to testify to the State against their accomplices or bosses is granted exclusively to the prosecutor – the Attorney General – without any political interference,” the NGO said.  

The statement comes following a request by Vince Muscat ‘il-Kohhu’ to be pardoned in exchange for inside information on three more major crimes.  

Muscat has already been granted a pardon to provide information on the men who ordered the killing of well-known Birkirkara lawyer Carmel Chircop in 2015.  

The AG’s decision should be subject to consideration by a court of appeal that could verify that the amnesty was given according to criteria clearly established in the law. 

The group said that in the current circumstances, no one can trust the cabinet to take a serene and impartial decision, when a member of the same cabinet faces the possibility of evidence being given against him.  

“No one of those who had written the Constitution and trusted the responsibility to ministers, had envisaged that ministers themselves could be implicated in crime,” it said.