It remains to be seen whether, by passing the Inquiries Act 2024 [Act], GSLP-Liberal Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, is putting his own, and his party’s interests, ahead of Gibraltar’s interests, as opposed to his assertion that “Mr. Azopardi [of the GSD] … has … put his own, personal, and party-political interests ahead of the public interest of Gibraltar.”
Mr Picardo has throughout argued that by the Act he is simply modernising the law and putting Gibraltar law on the same footing as UK law, whilst ignoring improvements that a Select Committee of the UK Parliament made in 2014.
Those improvements would have reduced the power of the GSLP-Liberal Government to throw a blanket of secrecy over aspects of the McGrail Inquiry.
UK LAW COPIED
In the last reply to The McGrail legal team he says, “… in making the new Inquiries Act, the Government of Gibraltar were simply copying the current state of UK law.” It is an absolutely accurate and truthful statement.
However, what Mr. Picardo does not say is that in 2014 a Select Committee of the UK Parliament (the House of Lords) suggested that 33 improvements should be made to the UK law. In ‘modernising’ the law in Gibraltar every one of those improvements are ignored, which rather contradicts that statement.
NO MODERNISATION
There is no modernisation there.
It is not there, because some of the improvements suggested in 2014 included that it should not be the government (in the UK Ministers) who decided whether to cancel or suspend any inquiry, or to keep private any part of any inquiry. Those decisions should be left to those undertaking the relevant inquiry. In Gibraltar that would be the Commissioner.
All those improvements have been left out of the Act. Accordingly, it is the Government that will decide what parts of the McGrail Inquiry will remain private and out of the public gaze. It would be self-serving for the GSLP-Liberal Government to use those powers, and so a conflict of interests.
UK NATIONAL PRESS
We will need to see what any requirements for privacy coming from the GSLP-Liberal Government might be, using the Act, now that the UK national newspapers, the Guardian, and the Times, have highlighted in articles last week and over the weekend what issues may be within the scope of the McGrail Inquiry.
Both newspapers highlight some matters that have not been pursued by the press locally. Those are now in the public domain. So, it would suit the Government for the public to be told that they do not reflect reality, would it not?
Mr. Picardo assures us that any decision about keeping matters secret will be taken by his GSLP-Liberal Government as a whole. The ability of the GSLP-Liberal Government to govern fairly and democratically will be put to the test by what it decides to do. If it chooses to keep certain matters private, people will wonder why?
‘PUBLIC INTEREST’ SHIFT?
One imagines that to the extent that those are in the public domain, following the reports in the UK press, the ‘public interest’ considerations that allow for privacy will have reduced considerably.
In contemplating that, a relevant matter under the Act that the government must consider is “the extent to which any restriction on attendance, disclosure or publication might inhibit the allaying of public concern”.
The ‘public interest’ will surely now have shifted to the public being persuaded of who is telling the truth accurately. Namely, is what the UK press publicising accurately reflective of events that are within the remit of the McGrail Inquiry, or are they not? Public concern is running high on that front.
INQUIRY BEGINS SOON
The McGrail Inquiry hearings are set to start in public on Monday next at 10 a.m., so we shall soon know how events will unfold in terms of what the Government may dictate will be kept away from public gaze.
The more that is kept private, the greater the public speculation will be, and the more that people will question whether it really is the ‘public interest’ which is being served by any action of the GSLP-Liberal Government to keep matters away from the public gaze.
Llanito World 