Former Director General of the Malta Employers Association Joseph Farrugia has stressed the need for a justice system "that works credibly," when talking to this newsroom following the news that he returned his Ġieħ ir-Repubblika award.

On Friday morning, Mr Farrugia returned the medal in protest following the outcome of the Yorgen Fenech jury trial. The artist and lecturer had been awarded the Midalja għall-Qadi tar-Repubblika in 2024.

He wrote a letter to President Myriam Spiteri Debono explaining his reasons for returning the award, in which he said that he no longer has faith in the Republic, and that while he loves his country "to death", he feels disconnected from it.

Asked what would need to change in order for him to regain faith in the Republic, Mr Farrugia highlighted the need to "not only have a justice system," but "for it to work credibly, in a way which people can trust. I don't think we are in that situation today."

He said he feels this way both because of the recent jury trial, but also because of other incidents.

As an example, he mentioned instances of businessmen being acquitted of charges due to administrative errors. "Do we see the justice system as being fair and objective? Is justice blind in this country? Today I would say no."

Asked whether, given his letter, he also feels the culture of impunity which had been referred to in the public inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia is still present in a number of institutions, he said that there is a lot of fear of speaking up in the country. "In a sense it is a form of omertà," which is a code of silence and non-cooperation with authorities.

"Many people feel they will get nowhere. God forbid we reach the stage where people would start taking justice into their own hands."

Responding to a question by this newsroom, he said he had already felt a certain way back in 2024 when he accepted the award. "For instance, I had held an exhibition over the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. I spent three years working on it and nothing else. Her murder had affected me to that point."

"When you take this, together with other cases in the past which I also mentioned in the letter... Will they never be solved? The Karin Grech murder, the Raymond Caruana murder. You sense that there is something underlying all of this."

Asked whether it's an institutional problem which could be solved by changing a few people at the top, he said that "it's worse, it's also a cultural problem."

"When you have a culture of clientelism where even politicians feel almost blackmailed by the voters, in a small country where everyone knows everyone," and what matters is who you know, "then it is already difficult to have a fair system. Let alone if you have corruption involved as well."

He also mentioned certain issues which are creating pressures in Malta, saying they have resulted in certain groups having more power.

For instance, he said that while Malta is the smallest EU state, statistics show that it is the country with "out of control" population growth. "This strategy is creating pressures on the environment, and is many a time why contractors get their way. As the demand for construction is there." 

He said that when there are these restraints and pressures, there is more of an inclination to see how to get around the laws "for your way to go through. We see this in construction. Why did contractors come out in defence of Johann Buttigieg?" 

"It's because he (Mr Buttigieg) is their man. You cannot have someone running the Planning Authority who has such a clear conflict of interest. It is indefensible."

Mr Buttigieg has been under pressure to resign from the Planning Authority following the publication of private conversations between him and Yorgen Fenech which took place in 2019, and separate revelations that Mr Buttigieg owns a consultancy side business. 

In the tourism sector, he said that the authorities aren't planning to attract a certain amount of tourists, then plan the building and accommodation stock around that. "It's the other way around. We build many buildings, and then say that for these buildings to be financially feasible, we need more than 5 million tourists. So we aim for 5 million."

He said that Daphne Caruana Galizia was able to see the links.

Civil unrest following Yorgen Fenech's acquittal remains ongoing, with a protest-concert set to be held tomorrow, Sunday 4th October.