Europe Must Renew Scrutiny of Malta's Rule of Law Failures Despite Fenech Acquittal
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/emanuel-delia,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/pieter-omtzigt. "Nine years after Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, Europe must finally address Malta’s culture of impunity | Pieter Omtzigt and Emanuel Delia | The Guardian." September 10, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
Nine years after journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered for exposing corruption, the man accused of ordering her killing was acquitted—but this doesn't erase the fact that nobody has been held responsible for commissioning the murder, and most promised reforms in Malta remain undone. The authors argue that because Malta's weak governance affects the whole EU (not just Malta), European institutions must step in and pressure Malta to finally implement real accountability and reform.
Conclusion
The Council of Europe and EU must resume comprehensive scrutiny of Malta's rule of law and demand implementation of reforms, because Malta's culture of impunity surrounding Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder and the corruption she exposed remains unaddressed nine years later.
Premises
- Nobody has been convicted of commissioning Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder, despite the men who physically carried it out being convicted, and Yorgen Fenech's recent acquittal leaves this gap unresolved
- Fenech's own testimony revealed a disturbing proximity between political power (the prime minister's chief of staff), private wealth, and the network that organized the murder, even though jurors found insufficient proof of his specific criminal responsibility
- Malta's own government-commissioned public inquiry concluded in 2021 that the state had created a culture of impunity enabling the murder, yet five years later most recommendations remain unimplemented
- Much of the corruption Caruana Galizia was investigating remains unpunished
- International precedent (European Court of Human Rights rulings on Russia's failure to pursue who commissioned journalist/activist murders) establishes that convicting only the physical perpetrators is inadequate state responsibility
- Malta's weak enforcement is not merely a domestic issue because EU business licensing means Maltese regulatory failures create risks and opportunities for impunity across the entire European Union
- The Council of Europe's own monitoring committee has already found that Malta's reforms since 2019 addressed only part of the deficiencies in democratic institutions and checks and balances
Assumptions
- State institutions bear responsibility for accountability beyond what criminal trials of direct perpetrators achieve
- International bodies like the Council of Europe and EU have legitimate authority and leverage to pressure member states on rule-of-law reforms
- Implementation of the public inquiry's recommendations would meaningfully address the culture of impunity
- Sustained external scrutiny and pressure can produce domestic reform where domestic political will has been lacking
- The proximity of power, wealth, and criminality revealed at trial is itself significant evidence of systemic failure, independent of the specific verdict