Over my dead body - Robert Abela

The ferocity with which Prime Minister Robert Abela defends corruption beggars belief.

For context, Abela was the legal counsel to the Cabinet led by the disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, under whose leadership Malta became a haven for corruption and crime.

He has now taken issue with the public's access to justice, a key element of the Rule of Law and democracy. He wants to shut down the right of private citizens to request a magisterial inquiry. Why anyone with a clear conscience should have an issue with magisterial inquiries, is beyond comprehension.

It's no coincidence that his push to curb the public's right started when the Vitals Inquiry was concluded. How he raged, how he ranted, how he disparaged and denigrated the magistrate who conducted the inquiry, and had her face splashed on all the Labour Party's media! Talk about an attack on the judiciary. His actions were not just an attack but a full-scale war.

Then the 17 Black inquiry was concluded. The inquiry has not been published as yet, however, the key players who the magistrate recommends be charged were leaked by the media. All people associated with Labour, such as a former prime minister's chief of staff, and a former minister.

Dr Jason Azzopardi played a key role in both inquiries. He has also independently requested other magisterial inquiries. It's important to note that a magistrate initiates an inquiry only when there is reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. All the inquiries requested by Dr Azzopardi were deemed worthy by the magistrate.

This has - for some inexplicable reason - infuriated Abela, and he started seeing red. I say for some inexplicable reason, because if, say, a Minister is the subject of an inquiry, the inquiry is an opportunity for the Minister to clear his or her name. Only someone with a guilty conscience should have an issue with being investigated. He should welcome such inquiries if he believes in transparency, accountability and the integrity of his ministers and high-ranking public servants.

Moreover, Abela has further shown his disrespect for the judiciary and the legal institutions by saying that he would not accept the conclusions of the inquiry if it turns out that there is evidence of wrongdoing. "Over my dead body," he declared.

Having the Prime Minister of a country waging war against the judiciary can only take Malta down a very slippery and dangerous slope. This is compounded by the fact that he has also decided to go to war against an independent investigative media portal, The Shift News, for the simple reason that quite a number of the facts that Dr Azzopardi used in compiling evidence to present to the magistrate when requesting inquiries was gleaned from it.

It's a crucial time to stand up to Robert Abela and the gang of criminals who have captured the state and to tell them, hands off our country, hands off democracy, hands off the Rule of Law, hands off justice.

Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders—presidents or prime min­isters who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps.

How Democracies Die - by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt