THE PUBLIC INTEREST CANNOT BE AN EXCUSE FOR ARBITRARY AND OPAQUE USES OF POWER

Together Gibraltar is deeply concerned by the Attorney General’s decision to enter a “Nolle Prosequi”, thus putting an end before trial to the ‘conspiracy to defraud’ case.

The party would like to highlight that this case involved a senior official with close ties to Ministers and dealt with the handling of important Government contracts, and that these issues (the political manipulation of the civil service and the opaque handling of Government contracts) happen to be one of Gibraltar’s most pervasive political problems.

Sadly, Gibraltar is all too used to seeing concepts like the “National Interest”, “Gibraltar PLC” and other, similar appeals to the greater good of our community abused to stifle public debate and shield those in power from potential political damage. In this case, we are seeing the AG go a step further, and intervene to directly shut down what had been up to now the last recourse for democracy and justice - the public evaluation of evidence in an independent court of law. Whether the AG acted to protect those involved in this case or not is irrelevant at this stage - the fact is that those involved have been effectively shielded from prosecution and public disclosure of their actions, and the perception that the rule of law and the separation of powers -a sacrosanct rule of democracy- have been tampered with is absolutely inevitable. This perception will further undermine the faith of people in the independence of our public institutions and our democracy, and puts the very foundations of our system at risk. By appealing to the national interest, and using this excuse to obfuscate the reasons for his actions, the AG is effectively asking the general public to grant him a blank cheque to operate arbitrarily and opaquely. He does not have the mandate, nor the moral legitimacy to do this.

For TG, having a robust democracy with the backing and support of its people is the ultimate general interest, and believes that a robust democracy should be able to handle the fallout caused by cases like this. What a robust democracy cannot allow is for the independence of its judiciary branch to be undermined, and for its checks and balances of power to be side-lined in this way.