Tangentopoli in Malta?

Former tangentopoli magistrate Antonio Di Pietro

In the 1990s, Italy was swamped in a corruption scandal which eliminated an entire political class and two parties with deep roots in Italian society: Christian Democracy and the Italian Socialist Party.

What is striking is that the revolution was spearheaded by magistrates who owe their positions not to politicians but to their individual capabilities. This is because magistrates in Italy advance in their career through public examinations not appointments.

This means that magistrates of the calibre of Giovanni Falcone or Francesco Saverio Borelli were not appointed by politicians, but made it on their own steam. Magistrates in Italy also have the power to investigate politicians on their own initiative - something unthinkable in Malta.

Surely this system is far from perfect and some would argue that magistrates had their own political agenda. Their zealousness is often questioned, albeit mostly when the rich and powerful fall under its spotlight. The elimination of entire political cultures also left a vacuum which was many times filled by dangerous populists.

Still, the greatest merit of the Italian judiciary is that magistrates operate independently from the political arm of the state. On the other hand, investigations on corruption in Malta are conducted by the police. This system creates a concentration of power in the arms of the executive arm of the State, which also falls under the political arm. This could get messy in politically charged cases.

One fundamental reform of the Maltese judicial system would be that of making the judiciary a career open to talent, based on merit and exams rather than appointment. Another would be to set a pool of inquiring magistrates dealing with cases of corruption. In this way such a pool would be at liberty to conduct its investigations on matters like the Delimara power station. Such a pool would be equipped with all the technology required to prove corruption allegation.

Surely the Italian experience shows that this could be risky, especially when power is not used in a judicious way which respects the presumption of innocence. But let's face it: without these powers there would have been no tangentopoli and tapping of the telephones of politicians. Would the police in Malta be able to conduct such investigations on their own steam with regards to the political class?

Finally tangentopoli started because at that time Italy banned private donations to parties which received direct funding from the state. Obviously this system was not working because parties created a parallel system of illegal funding. Not only are such donations legal in Malta, but parties are not even obliged to divulge their donors as happens in most other European democracies.

In absence of a law on party financing and an independent and probing judiciary, I very much doubt that Malta will ever have a full-blown tangentopoli.