Justice minister cautious on calls for Attorney General’s resignation

The justice ministry is keeping at arm’s length from criticism being levelled at the Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg.

Both the Nationalist Party and civil society organisations have called for the Attorney General’s ousting over a series of prosecutorial blunders which have ramifications in the ongoing investigation of individuals connected to the Caruana Galizia assassination.

“The office of the Attorney General is an independent and autonomous office, and the Ministry of Justice respects that independence,” justice minister Jonathan Attard told MaltaToday.

“The politician’s work remains that of ensuring the institutions have all the necessary resources to work efficiently and effectively.”

Attard said he would allow institutions to work “in serenity” and no “unjust pressure should be exerted to distract from the serenity”. Questions as to whether the Justice Minister still believes Buttigieg was fit for her post remained unanswered.

In January, a plea bargain for Daren Debono, who pled guilty to the botched HSBC heist, did not produce the necessary information on accomplices in the robbery. Already then the PN had called for then justice minister Edward Zammit Lewis, and Victoria Buttigieg to resign.  

The Malta Police Union (MPU) then demanded her resignation accusing the state prosecutor of not having had “the decency to reply to the judicial protest filed by the MPU in January 2022” in which the MPU said it was disgusted at the deal for Debono, “a person who unabashedly fired directly at members of the force”.

In another controversial decision, Yorgen Fenech lawyers Charles Mercieca and Gianluca Caruana Curran were cleared of the attempted bribery of Times journalist Ivan Martin, after the magistrate ruled the relevant offence was not properly indicated by the AG.

Reacting to the decision, rule of law NGO Repubblika and the Institute of Maltese Journalists called on Buttigieg to shoulder responsibility for the decision.  ADPD also joined calls for her resignation.

On Monday, In the latest twist to the saga, Repubblika claimed a former operations supervisor from Pilatus Bank was allowed to leave the country despite an arrest warrant for him, due to inaction from both the Attorney General and the police.

The accusation was made by Repubblika president Robert Aquilina in light of an affidavit sworn by lawyer Jason Azzopardi, together with court proceedings which the organisation filed against the AG and the Commissioner of Police, over the failure to carry out the arrests, despite the warrants having been issued by a magistrate way back in March 2021.