The industrial tribunal, chaired by Anna Mallia of all people, found Jonathan Ferris was unlawfully fired by the FIAU. He was dismissed during his probation period just days after the general election of 2017. People think that during probation they can fire someone with impunity. It’s not like that. You cannot fire someone during probation based on discrimination. And Jonathan Ferris was discriminated against because the government found his zeal for his job inconvenient.

Remember the context of the 2017 general election. It was called just days after Daphne Caruana Galizia reported that Pilatus Bank held evidence Michelle Muscat was the beneficiary of Egrant, the third Panama company. The Labour Party fully expected everyone to shut up in stunned silence when they resoundingly wonthe 2017 election. They claimed it was a baptism, a restart, a wiping of the slate. All their sins were forgiven.

In his enthusiasm for that political line then Finance Minister Edward Scicluna told the press that the leaked FIAU reports containing evidence about Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi’s wrongdoing, were designed to be leaked. There was also an investigation into Pilatus Bank that at the very least corroborated Daphne Caruana Galizia’s reporting about the fact that bank was a money laundering hell hole. “Designed to be leaked” meant that the investigators who wrote the report were fabricating evidence to make the government look bad.

Just hours later Jonathan Ferris was called to the office at the FIAU where Manfred Galdes used to work. Galdes had recently resigned after the police ignored his reports on Konrad Mizzi. In that office there now was Kenneth Farrugia (who has since been made CEO of the financial services authority) and Alfred Zammit (who is, as we speak, the top officer at the FIAU). They fired Jonathan Ferris. They fired him because he was inconvenient to the government, because he was interested in the truth, and because he didn’t care where the evidence took him. They didn’t tell him that though. They told him they were firing him because of his “performance”. The Industrial Tribunal didn’t believe it either.

Chairperson Mallia ordered the FIAU to compensate Jonathan Ferris with €20,000. For a dismissal during probation from a job that pays €32,000 a year that’s not to be sniggered at. More importantly, Ferris has been recognised as a victim of discrimination. Though you and I didn’t perpetrate this discrimination, it would seem that through our taxes we’re the only ones paying for it.

Edward Scicluna is governor of the central bank. Kenneth Farrugia is CEO of the MFSA. Alfred Zammit is acting director of the FIAU. These people, who perpetrated this injustice at the behest of Joseph Muscat and his gang inside the government and inside Pilatus Bank, will go to work on Monday as if nothing ever happened, ready to perpetrate their next vile act of discrimination if it suits their friends.

Now that’s unfair.