We refer to the Ombudsman’s report on the mismanagement of Corradino prison.
What emerged from the report confirms what many journalists have repeatedly reported about what was happening in the prison since 2018. The Ombudsman found mismanagement, degrading treatment of prisoners, and the use of intimidation as an administrative tool.
The Ombudsman confirmed what we have known for a long time about Alexander Dalli’s administration. Systematic violations of the law occurred in the prison. This while Minister Byron Camilleri continued to insist on keeping Alexander Dalli in his post and defending his administration. After Alexander Dalli left prison, Byron Camilleri appointed him as the representative of the Maltese state in Libya where he remains.
The Ombudsman said yesterday that it is not his function to determine who should bear political responsibility for systematic mismanagement of the prison. That is true. But political responsibility is there and must be borne.
Byron Camilleri should resign.
Alexander Dalli should be dismissed from all public office.
And the police should immediately investigate what criminal actions were committed by government officials when they probably willfully in breach of their duties oppressed the prisoners entrusted to their care.
If state employees abused their power to force people to suffer if not even die, it is the state’s obligation to act against them in accordance with the law. Otherwise the injustice is doubled. We have known about these abuses for years through courageous reporting by journalists based on testimonies (of prison employees and detainees) who took great risks to expose the abuse that was happening.
Few cases can better illustrate how bad the reforms that the government wants to make are. The government wants to (1) grant immunity from criminal liability to its employees; (2) disqualify journalistic quality evidence from being used to request a magisterial inquiry into allegations of abuses by government officials. And this while not only did the police fail to investigate Alexander Dalli and the other officials whom the Ombudsman said were imitating him, but Minister Byron Camilleri defended and promoted him.
The first to suffer from the failure of the rule of law are the most vulnerable. We are not all prisoners. But if we are unable to see how the systematic abuse of the dignity and fundamental rights of people whose lives are entrusted to the government, the collapse of the rule of law will mean the abuse and denial of the rights of anyone who finds themselves antipathetic to the government.
We thank the Ombudsman for this report and Moviment Graffitti who were the ones who drew the Ombudsman’s attention to what was happening in the prison.