Court orders Attorney General and police inspector to testify in case filed by Repubblika

The first hall of the Civil Court has rejected Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg and Police Inspector Pauline D’Amato’s requests not to testify in the hearing of the case Repubblika against the Attorney General scheduled for tomorrow 8 November.

Buttigieg and D’Amato each filed applications on 4 November asking the court to revoke a decree issued on 26 September that had accepted NGO Repubblika’s request to summon them as witnesses.

The case concerns a judicial protest filed by Repubblika over the Attorney General’s failure to follow up on the orders of the €7 million magisterial inquiry into the now-defunct Pilatus Bank which called for more prosecutions.

The NGO said that, based on the information it had obtained from the conclusions of the inquiry, clear documentation exists to prove that the bank’s former owner and director Ali Sadr Hasheminejad and disgraced former chief of staff Keith Schembri had engaged in trading in influence.

According to the judicial protest filed by Repubblika, the NGO “knows for a fact that this magisterial inquiry, concluded in 2021, had ordered the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General to issue criminal charges in connection with the facts that were forensically corroborated and committed by the persons outlined above,” .

One of the objections brought by the Attorney General as to why she should not testify is based on Article 569(6) of the Criminal Code, which states that the Attorney General “may direct that no proceedings are to be taken or that the proceedings to be taken are to be for a charge or charges different from those specified by the magistrate in the proces- verbal”.

In his decision, Mr Justice Falzon Scerri noted that this objection could not be understood given that the action before the court was not made under the Criminal Code but under Article 469B(1)(a) of the Code of Organization and Civil Procedure, which states that a Civil Court may be asked to review a decision of the Attorney General not to prosecute.

In a separate application, Police Inspector Pauline D’Amato objected by stating that, according to article 518 of the Criminal Code and article 637(5) of the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure, acts and documents of the court including any depositions and documents filed can only be open to inspection at the discretion of the Attorney General.

The court replied that while the legal provisions are correct, it is nevertheless common sense that these articles cannot count when it is the actions of the Attorney General herself that are being questioned. In this case, Repubblika is asking the court to investigate the actions of the Attorney General, so “it is evident that this article cannot be invoked to prevent this court from carrying out its work”.

The Court therefore confirmed its decision for the Attorney General and Inspector D’Amato to testify in tomorrow’s hearing.