Editorial: Choices facing the prime minister

Malta is at a crossroads. This is how Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca described this critical moment in the country’s history following the publication of the inquiry report on the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The board of inquiring judges found the State under Joseph Muscat responsible for the climate of impunity that allowed the murder to be committed. “We either take the right road to reform our institutions to ensure we live in a true democracy, or else get lost in political rhetoric and risk a repeat of more shameful episodes in future,” the former president warned last week. At this point in time, the only person in Malta who has the power to decide which road to take is Prime Minister Robert Abela. As he stands at the crossroads, one fork in the road leads to a fabric of national institutions independent and robust enough to take effective action against the first sign of wrongdoing by anyone in power. This would ensure impunity never has another chance to spread “like an octopus”, as the three judges put it so well. It would embed in our system the checks on abuse of power that are the mark of true democracy, in which the people and the common good, not...