MALTESE GOVERNMENT SEEKS LEAVE TO APPEAL ORDER REMOVING MAGISTRATE FROM PILATUS BANK CASE FOR CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Joseph Muscat and Michelle Muscat

Malta simply cannot free itself from the systemic corruption that infects all its major court proceedings. The State Advocate has announced that there government is seeking leave to appeal the decision of the Constitutional Court, removing the Magistrate Judge Nadine Lia from a case involving Pilatus Bank, whose officers and directors have been accused of massive money laundering operations, on the grounds of Conflict of Interest. Judge Lia's attorney father-in-law, Pawlu Lia, has represented former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who was closely linked to Pilatus' Iranian owner, and to the alleged receipt of bribes and kickbacks, in connection with the approval of the bank's charter, and its criminal conduct.

It is a basic principle in Common Law jurisdictions that a judge must recuse himself or herself if there is even the perception of impropriety, which includes evidence of Conflict of Interest. After Lia declines to withdraw from the Pilatus case, Maltese NGO Repubblika filed an action seeking her removal, which was granted by the Constitutional Court. Whilst we supported her removal as perhaps a small step towards adherence to the Rule of Law, rather than there usual corruption, we now see that Malta's corrupt leadership has struck back, seeking to maintain its ironclad control over the judiciary, in order to protect the guilty, at the highest level. The efforts to reverse the reassignment of the Pilatus Case, on purely technical, or procedural, grounds are without legal merit, and just one more fatal effort by corrupt leadership to control the courts.

If Magistrate Lia is returned to preside over the Pilatus Bank case, then there will be no justice for the people of the Republic of Malta; the guilty will never be held to account for their crimes and transgressions.