Repubblika to go to constitutional court after magistrate refuses recusal, father-in-law’s testimony

Repubblika will take its Pilatus Bank case to the constitutional court after Magistrate Nadine Lia refused the organisation’s request for her to recuse herself from a case and for refusing to have her father-in-law Pawlu Lia – the lawyer of former disgraced prime minister Joseph Muscat and his former and similarly disgraced chief of staff Keith Schembri – testify in her courtroom.

Repubblika is currently challenging the police commissioner before the courts over the force’s refusal to abide by an inquiring magistrate’s order, given about a year and a half ago, to proceed against the bank and its directors.

Muscat, Repubblika said today, was an alleged client of the bank while Schembri was a confirmed client, and both were the “alleged beneficiaries of its criminal activities”.

As such, Repubblika contends, “It is in the manifest interest of Joseph Muscat (and Keith Schembri) that the directors of Pilatus Bank are never brought to justice.

“In Repubblika’s view, “with her words and actions, Magistrate Nadine Lia has shown that she is not, she cannot be nor can she appear to be impartial in this case.”

Repubblika said it has been left with no other choice but to seek an impartial court and along such lines it will be opening a constitutional court case in the coming days.

Repubblika expressed its concern that the current system in which a member of the judiciary is asked to recuse themselves over a conflict of interest decides for themselves whether to accept the request and step down is “in itself unfair and an outrage to the fundamental right to a proper hearing”.

In her decree today, Magistrate Lia took Repubblika to task because, she said, the organisation’s original application had only referred to the directors of Pilatus Bank, which the police have not yet presented, and made no reference to Egrant.

“For some reason,” Repubblika explains, “Magistrate Lia ignored what we said about Egrant in our original application which was:

‘Apart from that, the applicant also knows, and this is being said for the sake of completeness before this Honourable Court, that the said Magisterial Inquiry which ended in March 2021 ordered the re-opening of the inquiry into Egrant, a secret company in Panama founded 48 hours after the 2013 general election in Malta, which is intimately linked to the dirty operation of Pilatus Bank, and this is known from various local and international reports.’”

By ignoring the Egrant reference, Repubblika accuses Lia of “finding an excuse to justify herself when she says she does not have a conflict of interest”.

The magistrate’s father-in-law Pawlu Lia, was not and is not the lawyer of any of Pilatus Bank’s directors. But, as Repubblika points out, “Magistrate Lia is knowingly and selectively ignoring the fact known to everyone that her father-in-law represented Joseph Muscat when he asked for an inquiry to be held on whether Joseph Muscat was the owner or beneficiary of Egrant.

“The possible proof that could have answered this question was, as everyone knows, in the possession of the directors of Pilatus Bank. It is the manifest interest of Joseph Muscat (and Keith Schembri) that the Directors of Pilatus Bank are never brought to justice.”

During Tuesday evening’s protest in Valletta against corruption, Repubblika showed documentation to the effect that the Pilatus Bank inquiry expressly recommends a proper investigation into the allegation that the bank had administered a transaction that constituted a bribe to then prime minister Joseph Muscat.

“The fact that she is doing everything to ignore all this clearly shows that Magistrate Lia is not, cannot be, and cannot appear to be impartial in this case,” Repubblika said.

It was the magistrate’s “same manifest imbalance” that caused her to throw out an extract of the magisterial inquiry into Pilatus Bank presented by Repubblika in court as proof it had, indeed, been concluded.

“The fact is that Magistrate Lia has every means of verifying to her full satisfaction that the copy certified by Repubblika President and Notary Public Robert Aquiline is truly authentic,” Repubblika observes.

“As the magistrate herself notes, the Commissioner of Police, who is being challenged by this lawsuit to implement the inquiry’s recommendations [to act on the Pilatus findings], and the Attorney General, who is being challenged by Repubblika in a separate legal action, have every means at their disposal to confirm that the copy presented by Repubblika and the originals in their possession are the same.”

Aquilina throws down the gauntlet: ‘Arrest me if I’m lying’

If Aquilina is lying, as the magistrate’s dismissive actions in court over his certified copies of the inquiry attempt to suggest, Repubblika challenged the police commissioner and attorney general, who are in possession of the original inquiry report and can verify if it matches what Aquilina presented in court, “they have the duty to immediately arrest and prosecute Robert Aquilina” for perjury and for failing his professional duties “in the most serious and criminal way”.

Aquilina today wrote to both the police commissioner and attorney general to demand they inform the court that what Aquilina presented in court was a certified extract from the Pilatus inquiry.

Short of that, Repubblika pointed out, the only alternative is to charge Aquilina in court.

Repubblika also referred to a section of Lia’s decree which addresses Repubblika’s complaint that Pawlu Lia had sought out and found Aquilina outside the courts, and attempted to intimidate him off the case, which Magistrate Lia put down to being a “spontaneous incident”.

Repubblika observed how, “Magistrate Lia has only previously heard the testimony of Notary Aquilina, her father-in-law Pawlu Lia, and from third parties who were on the scene.

“As such, she has no legitimate means of reaching this judgment on the nature of the incident. A reasonable suspicion arises that Magistrate Lia privately consulted with her father-in-law about the incident.”

This suspicion in its own right, Repubblika contends, let alone if this is what actually happened, is reason enough for Magistrate Lia’s recusal.