Our legislative framework has also proved weak in the fight against corruption. It should be an offence to spend public funds irresponsibly, wastefully or in a manner that benefits private interests over public interest or a contribution to the common good.
The manner in which Joseph Muscat’s government used public funds to compensate potential witnesses of corruption in order to secure their silence or continued complicity should, rightly, be punishable. We mention, by way of example, a contract granted by order of Joseph Muscat between the tourism agency and Konrad Mizzi as compensation for his resignation in disgrace from the office of the minister responsible for that same agency because he was exposed for unrelated corruption scandals.
Although the contract has been deemed unacceptable by both Prime Minister Robert Abela and the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, neither Joseph Muscat nor Konrad Mizzi has faced any form of consequence. Parliament’s Speaker recently ruled that once Joseph Muscat is no longer an MP the matter cannot be taken any further by Parliament’s Committee for Standards in Public Life. This consolidated further the culture of impunity when power is abused for corrupt purposes.
It is our view that abuse of office should be a specific offence that, except when an even graver crime has been committed, attracts appropriate punishment when a public official, in carrying out their responsibilities, breaches rules of conduct provided in law or acts beyond the powers given to them by law or fails to abstain in cases in which they are conflicted or seeks to obtain for themselves or others an unfair or undue advantage or cause anyone unfair disadvantage.
A possible model could be Article 323 of the Italian criminal code.23
In English law, misconduct in public office is an offence at common law triable only on indictment. It carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. It is an offence confined to those who are public office holders and is committed when the office holder acts (or fails to act) in a way that constitutes a breach of the duties of that office.
The offence is committed when a public officer acting as such wilfully neglects to perform their duty and/or wilfully misconducts themselves to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder without reasonable excuse or justification.24 The evidence heard by this Inquiry suggests to us that the criteria for this offence have been satisfied numerous times in the past few years.