Like Agamemnon and Menelaus, Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela jumped the ring ropes as a macho tag team in their assault on the independence of the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry. Joseph Muscat asserted his imaginary prerogative to define what the inquiry can and cannot inquire on. And Robert Abela is asserting his imaginary prerogative to determine when the inquiry has to stop inquiring at all.
Let’s not mince words. With all their undoubted learning, their incisive questioning, and the calm poise with which they handled unruly witnesses, not even Michael Mallia, Joseph Said Pullicino and Abigail Lofaro are above any manner of pressure. The proof of this pudding will only be in their report when that is out. But it is not entirely unreasonable to observe that the three were conditioned by Joseph Muscat’s carpet bombing of last Friday.
There are few rational explanations for their decisions to disallow questions that Daphne’s family wanted to put to Joseph Muscat. The word “irrelevant” was used many times. Theirs is the last word but it’s a free country and we’re entitled to wonder how asking Joseph Muscat why he helped Konrad Mizzi get himself a consultancy after his resignation in disgrace could be deemed irrelevant in the effort to establish what secret motivations they shared. Examining their conduct in the hours after Konrad Mizzi had just resigned because the owner of the Dubai company that wanted to bribe him had been arrested for killing Daphne Caruana Galizia, can be argued to be eminently relevant.
Similarly, questions on Joseph Muscat’s relationship with Brian Tonna (who like Konrad Mizzi refused to answer questions by the inquiry for fear of being incriminated) were rejected. And questions about conversations Joseph Muscat might have had with Keith Schembri regarding 17 Black and MacBridge. Those were also rejected. As were questions about security briefings Joseph Muscat had in the company of his chief of staff.
Strangely, the inquiry also froze questions on topics that were covered at length in questioning (including by the judges themselves) of other witnesses. If the questions had been allowed, Joseph Muscat could have given corroborating or contradictory evidence – either way a crucial version that the inquiry will need to reach its conclusions. Questions on the hospitals scandal were disallowed, for example. As were questions on the ITS site concession which had been discussed with the concessionaire Silvio Debono just days earlier.
What changed the attitude of the inquiry board? What was it that made them think that questions on the ITS site were relevant if put to the concessionaire (Silvio Debono) but not to the man from whom he got the concession (Joseph Muscat)? What was it that made them change their mind about the relevance on the VGH contract when they had allowed questions on the subject to be put to Chris Cardona, but not to his former boss Joseph Muscat?
We only see the tip of the inquiry’s iceberg. We don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. But Joseph Muscat school master’s admonition of the judges did not happen behind the scenes. Did the judges feel chastised? Were their decisions to block tough questions from being put to Joseph Muscat a product of mortifying contrition?
The proof of the pudding is in the final report. But let’s be clear about one thing. The process of dragging these powerful or formerly powerful people in a public forum to answer tough questions about their conduct under oath is in itself part of the process of administrative adjustment, even, to some extent, justice.
Joseph Muscat has avoided tough questioning for months before Friday. He hasn’t given a proper interview to speak of, he’s dodged parliament like a leper’s colony, and in public, he’s said little more than hinting at unspecific pebbles in his sandals that he keeps there as some conveniently hidden but much-propagated stigmata.
He should have been made to answer those questions on Friday. And if there was not going to be enough time he should have been brought back to answer the rest of the tough questions about his conduct he has been avoiding for months and years.
All of those questions would have been relevant, crucially important, to arrive at an answer to the question about the state’s responsibility in Daphne’s killing. Because they’re questions she asked and did not get an answer to, they’re scandals she exposed and she was the one to suffer from the impunity that followed for those whom she dragged out of the shadows. Even to the point of death.
But we did not get Joseph Muscat’s answers on Friday, not least because the judges did not interrupt his interminable verbiage, they did not check his abundant irrelevancies. Consider that Daphne’s family was not allowed to ask Joseph Muscat about his relationship with Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and Brian Tonna because of ‘lack of relevance’ but Joseph Muscat was allowed to regale the courtroom with a 30-minute lecture on the prospects of an economic model for newsprint media. That was deemed relevant.
The proof of this pudding then is not just in the eating, but also in the making. And though this past year has been an eye-opener, a powerful process of documenting the failures, the slip-ups, the trickery, the deceit, the mismanagement, the corruption and the complicity of this omnishambles of Joseph Muscat’s administration, last Friday was a not too small blemish on the entire process.
Because let’s face it, it doesn’t get bigger than Joseph Muscat and the questions he should have been made to answer.
Robert Abela is taking no chances. Enough harm has been done, as he sees it at least. So now he wants to shut down the entire operation.
As with their decision on how to react to Joseph Muscat’s barrage in their general direction, only the judges will know if they feel they have heard enough to draw the conclusions they need to fulfil their terms of reference. I can’t imagine how anyone, knowing all we know, would not feel they need to know more, not merely to reach a conclusion that the state failed Daphne and continues to fail the public’s right to live in a functioning democracy that deals with corruption and protects its journalists, but rather to document all the evidence that needs to go down in their report to arm the country with what it needs to improve things in the future, prevent another Joseph Muscat, protect every other Daphne Caruana Galizia.
This pudding may be yanked out of its bath too soon.
The judges presiding the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry might on 15 December agree with Robert Abela that they have heard enough. That may or may not be the truth. But as with the sadness with which we left the courtroom Friday, we would not help but feel that in this country Joseph Muscat is still Boss Hogg and the first instinct of too is still to do his bidding.