Tag: Panamagate

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Mediawatch

Judge Grixti’s Catch-22

“They don’t have to show us Catch-22,” the old woman answered. “The law says they don’t have to.”
“What law says they don’t have to?”
“Catch-22.”


Catch-22, Joseph Heller

Konrad Mizzi, the government and anybody with an interest in transforming the Mizzi/Schembri Panama Papers issue into yet another story of apparent ‘allegations’ are crying victory all over the social media following the Appeals Court decision to overturn a lower court’s decision to allow an in genere inquiry (inquest-inkjesta) to go ahead into allegations of money laundering by the government’s star-minister.

Ignorance of the law has always been abused of and politicians will continue to do so, as long as citizens are happy to be taken for a ride. The Court decision today is all about not allowing an inquiry to go ahead. It does not exculpate Mizzi – far from it. The whole judgment reads as a technical examination on whether or not the grounds exist for an in genere inquiry to go ahead. In layman’s terms the Judge was examining whether the report that was made was substantial enough to justify starting an examination of facts in order to preserve such facts for what could eventually be a prosecution.

The worry in today’s Malta is that the systemic breakdown that includes the breakdown of the rule of law has affected every branch of our democracy’s institutions. Our Justice Minister constantly takes pride in reminding everyone who complains that, among others, we have a faultless judicial appointments system. And yet.

Yet the Venice commission report clearly pointed out faults in this appointments system. The judiciary remain firmly within the hold and control of the executive – particularly with regards to their hopes for their future career development. It would not take much to begin to wonder whether judgments are being written in reverse – a decision is taken and then an excuse for a justification for a decision that grasps at straws to sound “law-worthy’ is conjured up as a supposedly good reason to reach that decision that has already been decided.

Judge Grixti’s ruling is faulty. There is no harm in saying that because, as I know very well myself, drafters of judgments are far from being infallible. It is not enough to claim that it is faulty though – an explanation must be given. @bugdavem on twitter gave the perfect explanation in a thread that I am reproducing below.

I will only add that Grixti seems to have come up with a Catch-22 situation for anyone wanting to report a crime with the hope to get an inquiry in genere going.

It goes something like this: You need an in genere inquiry to investigate, find and confirm the existence of proof that may be used for a future prosecution of a crime. In order to get an in genere inquiry going you need to provide the type of proof that would normally be found and obtained by the in genere inquiry itself. See? Grixti’s very own Catch-22.

Bugdavem on twitter

The catch with Judge Giovanni Grixti’s ruling is (and this is where you realise that the Maltese courts have – intentionally or otherwise – no understanding of money laundering), that attempted money laundering is in itself a crime punishable by 3+ years imprisonment.

What does that mean or entail? Money laundering laws set a low threshold for evidence given that, in practice, the machinations that might be employed by launderers or attempted launders could frustrate justice.

In a case of actual money laundering, the threshold needed for the prosecution is prima facie – at face value – that there is no logical or lawful explanation for the monies to be laundered. The Maltese courts have held jusrt this in the past and it is also clearly stated in the law.

Once that is proven then it is up to the defendent to prove to the satisfaction of the court that any monies and arrangements were in fact lawful and legitimate. This is the rule for actual money laundering as well as the threshold and burdens of proof required.

For attempted money laundering, the threshold is even lower since given that this is an “attempt” one would need to show prima facie the intention and preliminary steps taken to implement that intention.

In Judge Giovanni Grixti’s decision to reject even the opening of an inquest to saveguard evidence (ie, not even for a prosecution so the threshold is actuallylower) he ruled that he expected a level of evidence that is higher than the prosecution in an actual case of laundering .

This is the active part where he stated that is was incumbent on the complainant, here Simon Busuttil, to prove how the series of events and machinations were illegal (as opposed to the threshold of prima facie no logical or lawful explanation).

Anyone with half a brain can see how bizarre this is. The threshold to request a magistrate to safeguard evidence in attempted laundering which the Police won’t investigate is (by virtue of this judgment – J’accuse) actually (set) higher than that required by the Police to secure a conviction for actual money laundering.

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Panamagate

Akkuzaforizmi – Sejf

SkonD one news ma hemm l-ebda “sejf” fil-kcina ta’ Pilatus. Is-sejf il-muzew tal-arkaeologija qieghed le? Imbaghad meta ssemmi sejf u Pilatu mohhok itir ghal Cesri u l-Ides of March. X’tahwid simboliku. X’konfuzjoni kataklizmiku. X’mizerja ta’ poplu imdorri jahdem bil-fidi u mhux bil-logika. #ghidofmarch

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Panamagate Politics

Akkuzaforizmi – Believe

In the UK they had Brexiters and Remainers. Malta has its Believers and Deniers… though having said that it is more of a case of Believers and Believers … as the Maltese saying goes… to each his god. #faithpolitics

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Watermarks

Watermarks: The Definition of Forgery

forgery_akkuza

We have moved from “misrepresentation” to “outright lie”. Minister Konrad Mizzi has become a specialist in libel law. It is a standard in the Maltese game of politics and carries with it the public assumption that “since X has resorted to the courts then X must be right”. It is not how it should be, it is not what the institutes of libel and slander were set up to protect but hey, no Maltese politician in recent history has shied away from abusing of the law in this manner so why should Mr. Konrad?

“Mr. Konrad”, now there is a curious way of referring to a Minister – or anyone for that matter unless you are a slave on a cotton plantation in pre-emancipation US. Yet that is how Karl Cini of Nexia BT refers to the Unportfoglioed Minister in his correspondence to Mossack Fonseca. Cini is speaking to Mossack Fonseca about Mizzi’s PEP status and is also endeavouring to explain the “How many?” and the “Wherefrom? of the funds that will be eventually subject to movements to companies that are set up by Mossack Fonseca.

It is here that Mr. Konrad’s speech of “outright lies” finds a huge banana skin on which to slip and fall. Without playing the special investigator one can see why Konrad Mizzi finds himself in an immense schizophrenic conundrum. Why? Well over the same period of time there had to be two Konrad Mizzi’s:

The first Konrad Mizzi is the one who delegates Cini to contact Mossack Fonseca and set up a structure that requires a considerable amount of funds in order to justify its continued existence. That Konrad Mizzi has an interest to explain that he has quite a considerable amount of personal funds and also has an interest to downplay his role as a PEP. That is why Karl Cini stresses that “our legislation openly allows PEPs to hold shareholdings in other businesses”. So whether he is lying or saying the truth to Mossack Fonseca, Mizzi (through his agents at Nexia) would like the truth to seem that he is loaded with money coming from ventures that are legal notwithstanding his status as a PEP.

The second Konrad Mizzi is the one who was made Minister by Joseph Muscat. That Konrad Mizzi was at first supposed to be a wunderkind who earned loads-a-money while abroad (fuelled by the myth that “studja barra u hadem barra ergo qed jimpala l-liri“) and owned property/properties abroad and has an international family. That was the early story to explain why he needed an international structure involving a tax haven even though his overall worth amounted to a pittance (by multimillionaire tax haven standards). The second Mizzi wanted us to believe that the whole set up cost a couple of tens of euros (was it 90?) and that it was all about family planning.

You can begin to see the dilemma facing Konrad Mizzi. The documentation that is trickling out of the ICIJ Panamaleaks is slowly but surely pointing towards the Konrad Mizzi that one would expect to exist – one who either has or claims to have the kind of funds that justify such operations. The second Mizzi – Minister Mizzi – can give us as facts his Ministerial declarations of worth that obviously clash with declarations done in his own name by the first Konrad Mizzi.

So you see. Speaking about “outright lies” is dangerous in these circumstances. In the not so halcyon days of studying criminal law I still remember now Chief Justice Camilleri lecturing us about fraud and forgery. A forged document is one that “tells a lie about itself”, he would tell us. I wonder what kind of fraud or forgery would be one that yells that it’s an “outright lie”.

Watermarks

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Watermarks

Watermarks: Walking on Water

Watermarks

Watergate

I re-watched “All the President’s Men” yesterday. It’s a 1976 movie featuring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffmann and it chronicles the work of Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein that led to the uncovering of the Watergate Scandal and the eventual resignation of President Nixon. The facts surrounding Watergate happened in the early seventies – a time without the mass means of communication and information that we know of today. Journalistic investigation was painstakingly slow and when the main whistleblower “Deep Throat” speaks in riddles there is much digging for information to be done.

Watergate was all about a money trail. Nixon and his party were using huge slush funds from the GOP campaign to finance covert operations intended to sabotage the Democrat campaign. There was no sudden discovery of all the information. It all started with what seemed to be a simple burglary at the Watergate complex and it was only thanks to the dogged work of the two journalists against all odds that the whole extent of the scandal was uncovered.

When the Post decided to run with the first big title linking big heads in government to the corruption trail, the official response was big and could be summed up in one word: denial. Nixon’s spokesperson attacked the journalists and the entity they worked for and came up with the phrase “shoddy journalism” and “shabby journalism”. Nixon’s people implied that there was a misreading of facts and that the Post had an ulterior political motive for “fabricating” such information.

All Nixon’s men did was gain some more time. They used that time to abuse their positions in power to try to harass anybody who was on their trail and close to obtaining damning information. Astonishingly Nixon won an election when the scandal had only just broke – but not so astonishingly at that point the pieces of the puzzle were far from Nixon and it was hard for the man in the street to make the connection. As more evidence was compiled – mostly by “following the money trail” – Nixon’s position became untenable.

All through the scandal that dragged on for two years, Nixon’s behaviour smacked of abuse of power and disrespect of institutional authority. At one point Nixon ordered the Attorney General (Richardson) and his deputy (Ruckelshaus) to sack special prosecutor Cox. Neither of the two accepted such a blatant abuse and both resigned in protest. Nixon only managed to get what he wanted when he found an appeasing Attorney General in Bork. Responding to members of the press for this Nixon stated emphatically “I am not a crook”.

Walking on Water

Events closer to home are uncannily similar to what happened in the Nixon days. We have a musical chairs of police commissioners who hesitate to prosecute when it is blindingly obvious that there is matter sufficient for prosecution. We have a government machinery that functions on blanket, unfounded denial and that resorts to bullying tactics when it comes to investigative journalists doing their job. Yesterday we had a Minister without portfolio mimicking Nixon’s spokesperson accusing journalists of not knowing how to read and of being “malicious”.

Every day is bringing to light more damning information linking more and more dots in a scandal that knows no equal in Maltese history. The Prime Minister and the two persons directly involved in the story choose to bury their heads in the sand and cling onto power hoping for a miracle of the walk on water kind. Apparently these scandals are not enough because some still claim that Malta is “economically strong”. I seriously believe it is only a matter of time that this fabrication of statistics falls apart – especially in the light of the fact that the greatest supposed economic injections under this government are tainted and linked with the scandalous events of Panamagate.

Muscat prefers to drag Malta through scandal after scandal rather than bear the responsibility and act in the interests of the nation. Like Nixon he believes that he will not “resign a position that he was elected to fill”. Like Nixon he prefers to use his incumbency in his favour so long as it is possible – thus protracting the agony of an electorate in need of clarity and honest politics.

One day, in the not too distant future, Muscat might face a journalist like Frost who when asked by Nixon “what would you have done” replied:

One is: there was probably more than mistakes; there was wrongdoing, whether it was a crime or not; yes it may have been a crime too. Second: I did – and I’m saying this without questioning the motives – I did abuse the power I had as president, or not fulfil the totality of the oath of office. And third: I put the American people through two years of needless agony and I apologise for that.

Watermarks is a new series on J’accuse. The idea consists in having a morning “short” taking a quick look  and reflection on current events in the news – what is trending and why.

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Zolabytes

Panamagate: Labour’s Fell Swoop

fell swoop _ akkuza

Occam’s Laser is a long-time J’Accuse reader who works in the financial services sector. In this article Occam argues that Labour is willfully muddying the waters over Panamagate, exploiting the concerns of conscientious liberals to further its own agenda.

The Labour Party is desperate. For three months it has tried to brazen out Panamagate, but despite its survival of various protests, no confidence motions and other crises, the issue simply won’t go away. Now it is hoping that by tarring the whole Maltese professional class with the same brush, it will cause enough of a distraction for people to start talking about something, anything, but Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri’s egregious misdemeanors.

This is clear from the recent PL attacks on Tonio Fenech and the private sector companies he works for, the attacks on the law firm EMD and its consultant Richard Cachia Caruana, and its general bewildering aggression towards any PN leaning individual somehow involved in financial services. What PL is trying to do is obvious; they want to conflate public concern about the disparate issues of global tax avoidance and its own internal governance disasters in order to dissipate public outrage. This is yet another of the PL’s dirty tricks, and the public shouldn’t allow the PL to wave this red herring in its face with impunity.

To start off with, Malta’s strategic decision to become a financial services centre is one which enjoyed (and below the surface, still enjoys) broad cross-party consensus. So PL is being maliciously disingenuous when it feigns getting its knickers in a twist over this week’s various pseudo-revelations. Secondly, while there is no denying the inherent link between a world order that allows international corporate secrecy, and the exploitation of that secrecy by persons such as Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, the two problems require radically different solutions.

Regarding the problem of international tax avoidance, this is one which requires, at the international level, a global co-operation and a deep philosophical rethinking of the way the world works; and at the local level, a careful repositioning of Malta as a jurisdiction which adds value beyond its low tax base (this is already the case to some extent, but a truly well intentioned government could do much more to improve things). This is going to be a big, slow job.

The Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri situation, on the other hand, is a pressing governance catastrophe that requires urgent and immediate action. Every day they hold on to their position, they cause irreparable harm to our reputation, and indeed deprive us of the valuable time that we need to reposition and further diversify our economy.

Perhaps the most galling thing about this PL manouvre is the way it exploits the feelings and concerns of the country’s most conscientious individuals, those who genuinely worry about things like global inequality and corporate ethics, turning these noble concerns into tools to further its own ends. Worryingly, we’ve already seen PL try to exploit the concerns of the conscientious before, as with that other red herring about Joseph Muscat supporting gay marriage a few weeks ago. This is shockingly unscrupulous behaviour; the Maltese public deserves better, and PL shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

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Zolabytes is a rubrique on J’accuse – the name is a nod to the original J’accuser (Emile Zola) and a building block of the digital age (byte). Zolabytes is intended to be a collection of guest contributions in the spirit of discussion that has been promoted by J’accuse on the online Maltese political scene for 10 years.
Opinions expressed in zolabyte contributions are those of the author in question. Opinions appearing on zolabytes do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of J’accuse the blog.
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