Toni Abela’s €105,000 taxpayer-funded contract beyond reach of FOI law

The engagement contract of former Labour deputy leader and retired judge Toni Abela, whose appointment as Standards Commissioner for the Judiciary is estimated to cost taxpayers around €105,000 a year, cannot be obtained through Malta’s Freedom of Information Act after the newly appointed Information and Data Protection Commissioner, Reno Borg, ruled that the Office of the President was justified in refusing to disclose it.

The decision follows a Freedom of Information request submitted by The Shift, seeking a copy of Abela’s engagement contract following his appointment to the newly created constitutional role. The Office of the President rejected the request, insisting that it did not hold the document.

Following an investigation, the government-appointed Information Commissioner, 74-year-old Borg, concluded that there was no evidence the Office of the President possessed the requested contract and that its refusal was therefore justified.

In its submissions, the Office argued that although President Myriam Spiteri Debono chairs the Commission for the Administration of Justice by virtue of her office, the Commission is an independent constitutional body that conducts its work separately from the Office of the President.

It maintained that the Office neither participates in the Commission’s functions nor holds documents generated through its proceedings, including Abela’s engagement contract.

The Office further argued that the Commission for the Administration of Justice is a sui generis constitutional body that is not classified as a ‘public authority’ under the Freedom of Information Act. Consequently, it said, the FOI request could not be transferred to the Commission because it falls outside the scope of the legislation.

Borg, a former Bank of Valletta chairman, accepted those arguments in full, even though the Commission and its appointees are funded from public coffers.

The decision leaves unanswered long-standing questions over the remuneration package negotiated by Abela following his retirement from the Bench.

As previously revealed by The Shift, Abela, 68, initially sought to receive both his full judicial pension and the full salary attached to his new constitutional office. Had his demands been accepted, his annual remuneration would have exceeded €150,000, representing an increase of around €50,000 over the salary of a serving judge and exceeding that of the Chief Justice.

However, following discussions with the Commission for the Administration of Justice, Abela was forced to abandon that position. Instead, he accepted a package under which his judicial pension is taken into account, limiting his total annual remuneration to approximately €105,000 – broadly equivalent to what he would have earned had he remained a serving member of the judiciary.

At the time, Abela argued that other retired members of the judiciary appointed to senior public offices, including the Ombudsman and the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, were allowed to draw both their judicial pension and a full public salary, insisting that he should be treated in the same manner. His arguments were dismissed.

The controversy prompted repeated requests by The Shift for publication of the engagement contract, all of which were rejected.