Before the March 2013 general elections, the police signalled their interest in John Dalli who had left office in disgrace, dismissed from the European Commission in October 2012 on the basis of evidence collected by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). Following further investigation by the Maltese Police, they and the Attorney General considered that there were sufficient grounds to prosecute John Dalli.
Angelo Gafà, then police investigator and now Police Commissioner, testified to the Parliamentary Privileges Committee that Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit, who succeeded John Rizzo, ignored the Attorney General’s advice to arraign John Dalli.7 We are quoting press reports rather than referring to the transcript of this meeting in Parliament (14 January 2015) since the transcript is not yet available on the Parliament’s website8 although six years have passed.
Submitting a former Finance Minister and European Commissioner to criminal proceedings for corruption would have sent a clear signal that no one was above the law. But the tactical removal of Commissioner John Rizzo made it possible for John Dalli to return to Malta free of the risk of criminal prosecution, to be later engaged in a public ceremony as a senior consultant to the government led by Joseph Muscat.
The public record shows that John Dalli was engaged to advise the government on health policy, the area for which he was responsible in Brussels before his forced resignation. The most prominent policy initiative in the health sector was the privatisation of three public hospitals in an initiative mired in scandal and which is the subject of ongoing criminal investigations.