Immediately upon his election, Joseph Muscat asked all serving Permanent Secretaries to submit their resignation, even before he appointed the Cabinet of Ministers. This effectively decapitated the public service, preventing it from exercising its function of ensuring institutional memory, administrative continuity and to act as a legal conscience for the political leadership of the administration.
The signal sent from the first hours of the administration was that the civil service was expected not merely to serve loyally the government of the day – which is, of course, its function – but to do so unquestioningly. This is reflected in some of the responses heard by the Inquiry from senior civil servants. The public had a right to expect these officials to recommend restraint in several decisions that are only explained by taking into account the corrupt interests of people outside the public administration and their accomplices within it.
The impact of this overture to Joseph Muscat’s government is nowhere more evident than the consequences of the removal of John Rizzo from the position of Police Commissioner. John Rizzo was widely admired for his no-nonsense approach to corruption. He led investigations and brought to prosecution and conviction high profile cases of corruption without regard to any political consequence suffered by anyone in authority.
His handling of cases such as the investigation and prosecution of Judges Noel Arrigo, Patrick Vella and Ray Pace, the investigation and prosecution of corruption in oil procurement at Enemalta, of corruption in licensing at the transport regulator’s office
and other cases, will have been a warning to anyone coming into power in March 2013 that John Rizzo would be an obstacle to the execution of a corrupt roadmap.
Evidence heard by this Inquiry shows that Joseph Muscat’s government offered John Rizzo any position he might wish, and eventually even a consultancy, as long as he agreed to leave vacant the office of the Police Commissioner.
Given John Rizzo’s record, it is hard to imagine that the impunity enjoyed in several of the cases heard by this Inquiry and summarised below could have persisted for as long as they did.
Moreover, this signal cascaded down to lower levels. It is worth pointing out that less than ten days after the 2013 election, on 19 March, the Mayor of Żurrieq, Ignatius Farrugia, and others harassed Daphne in public to the point that she had to seek refuge in a convent. In her testimony, Daphne said that while she was in the convent for protection, the people who chased her were shouting: “Take her out, take her out. Power belongs to us.”6