Jonathan Ferris accuses Justice Minister of 'lying to MEPs' faces' over whistleblower protection

Embattled former FIAU officer Jonathan Ferris has filed a judicial protest, the first stage before filing an actual lawsuit, against the Prime Minister, the Minister for Justice, the Attorney General and External Whistleblower Unit officer Philip Massa saying the Unit had repeatedly moved the goalposts to derail his application for Whistleblower protection.

Ferris, a former police inspector with the Economic Crimes Unit, had been fired from a new post at the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit not long after joining the unit. He claims that this happened because he dug too deep in his investigations into government corruption allegations. Ferris insists that the termination of his employment was illegal and abusive and the result of ministerial interference.

He had filed a case before the Industrial Tribunal, arguing unfair dismissal and in January, had filed a judicial protest against the Attorney General, demanding whistleblower status which he claims was being unreasonably withheld. “Despite an exchange of emails between his legal consultants, the Whistleblower Officers at the Ministry of Finance and justice and the Cabinet Office, they did nothing but waste his time.”

In the judicial protest presented today, Ferris said he wished to “inform and formally call out to the authorities, the actual position which is in shameless breach of the spirit and letter of the law.”

Giving a chronological breakdown of the events, which Ferris said should “make the protested parties blush, despite the nice words said by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Justice, recently,” the protest paints a dispiriting picture of unreasonableness.

On December 1, 2017, it says, Ferris and his lawyer had met the Whistleblower Officer at the Ministry of FInance and was told that he should be given whistleblower status.

A few days later, Ferris was informed that as an ex-FIAU employee, the request must be made to the External Whistleblower Disclosure Unit in the Cabinet Office.

In the first week of December 2017, Ferris’ lawyers wrote to the Whistleblower officer at the Ministry of Justice, Godwin Pulis, asking for a meeting, which was granted and in which he was instructed to make an “external disclosure,” as he was no longer an employee of the FIAU.

No less than six reminders were sent to Pulis, asking where exactly this external disclosure was supposed to be made, before in January 2018 Ferris was informed that it should be made to the Cabinet Office.

Ferris’ legal team had corresponded with Philip Massa, an officer in the External Whistleblower Office, in the hope of making a formal request for Whistleblower status.

The judicial protest states that Massa had requested Ferris first send him the information he wished to disclose in writing. “On 12 January, his legal team had replied, literally 5 minutes after receiving the email from Massa asking for an urgent appointment.

Immediately an automatically-generated acknowledgment  was received.” Four days later, after a reminder was sent to Massa, he had replied with an email explaining that “an external disclosure in terms of the Protection of Whistleblower Act has to be made in writing,” insisting that the meeting Ferris had attended previously “did not exonerate” him from “the obligation to make the disclosure in writing.”

The former fraud investigator had met with Massa in Valletta and handed over documents which he said amply justified the granting of whistleblower status, as the same documents had been subject to a request by the Attorney General for their removal from the Industrial Tribunal case, on the grounds that they were “a national security threat” and due to the fact that they contained classified and privileged information subject to professional secrecy under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Later that month, on 24 January, Ferris was asked by Massa to provide “relative documentation evidencing that he had attempted to make an internal disclosure with the whistleblowing reporting officer of the Internal Disclosure UNit within the Ministry of Finance.” The next day, his lawyers had replied, reminding Massa of the Prime Minister’s statement to the visiting MEPs that Ferris would be granted whistleblower protection. They explained that he had been prevented from making an internal disclosure by his sudden and unexpected termination from the FIAU.

Notwithstanding this, Massa had insisted on being provided with evidence of an attempted internal disclosure by Ferris’ legal team. They had replied by accusing him of placing unnecessary obstacles in Ferris’ path and quoting articles 15 and 16 of the Whistleblowers Act which permit external disclosure without prior internal disclosure.

What followed was an exchange of correspondence in which Massa steadfastly insisted on being provided with evidence of an attempt at internal disclosure, which the lawyers described as “a dialogue with a deaf State.” On 15 February, Ferris’ legal team had replied that even the Whistleblower Officer at the Ministry of Justice had told them to make an external disclosure. Two weeks later, on March 2nd 2018, Massa had written to Ferris once again, urging him to make an internal disclosure - a puzzling request in view of the fact that he was no longer an FIAU employee - and warning that failure to do so would result in him being refused whistleblower status.

“These facts...show that the protested parties moved, in a manner that cannot but be described as malicious and conniving, the goalposts whenever the protestant showed that he was abiding by the law.”

The judicial protest accuses Minister Owen Bonnici of “lying to MEPs' faces” when he had assured a delegation investigating the Rule of Law in Malta that there would be no dragging of feet in granting Ferris protection.

In view of the Prime Minister’s and Justice Minister’s repeated public assurances that protection would be granted as Malta is a state under the rule of law and which respects the principles of good governance and transparency, they now had “a legal and moral obligation to give effect to their own words” and not tolerate Massa’s actions any longer, reads the document, which was signed by lawyers Roselyn Borg, Jason Azzopardi and Andrew Borg Cardona.