Delia: why is Muscat afraid to remove police commissioner, what would be revealed?

The delegation of MEPs who came to Malta on Thursday and Friday on a fact-finding mission, left without any peace of mind that things in Malta were operating according to the rule of law, Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia said today.

Speaking at a conference which started the consultation process to revamp PN local councils, Delia said that, after numerous meetings, the delegation noted that there was not even the will on the part of the police commissioner to try to find out who was behind the brutal assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

“We have been saying that the rule of law is in danger in Malta. The chief justice and civil society also said so, and now the MEP delegation has said so as well,” Delia maintained, adding that he would speak about this issue at every opportunity he had, since it took precedence over all else.

“For how long are you going to defend the police commissioner, Prime Minister,” Delia asked, “What are you afraid of? What will be revealed if the police commissioner is removed and replaced by someone else”?

Muscat had to stop fooling the people by saying that those who spoke up are traitors of their country, he maintained, and it was our obligation to speak about what was going on.

Delia reiterated that Malta was not a normal country, but that the PN would not remain silent, and would be a united party, with one voice, which would be an opposition which strived to see that the government did not harm Malta anymore.

Regarding local councils, Delia said that the Nationalists had 25 years ago started the process of decentralisation of power, through the establishment of councils for Malta’s localities. The government was now doing the opposite, he maintained - it as taking the power back to itself, something it had no right to do, and which was an abuse and breaking of the law.

“This government is intervening where it has no right to do so,” Delia emphasised, “it does so by either forcing something to happen, or forcing it not to happen.”

Addressing the councillors present, he said they should ask themselves what they wanted for their locality, and invited them to think how they could really change how the locality looked at itself.

He highlighted that, while there was a sense of community in Malta’s old towns, this was lacking in the newer ones, and this put the island’s localities at risk of becoming soulless.

“Local councillors have to really be a part of their community in order to improve it,” he added.