Muscat sparks fury defending dead judge in Fortina scandal: Malta split over honour vs accountability

‘In bad taste’: Joseph Muscat defends dead judge in Fortina report scandal
By Hot Malta Staff

Sliema’s seafront was still buzzing with Tuesday-afternoon ice-cream queues when former prime minister Joseph Muscat took to Facebook to slam a parliamentary report that blamed the late Judge Antonio Mizzi for the 1990s Fortina hotel concession. Within minutes, the post ignited the island’s favourite pastime—fiery comment-section debate—turning the usually placid Independence Gardens dog-walkers into impromptu political pundits.

The 220-page document, tabled last week by Speaker Anglu Farrugia after a year-long inquiry, concluded that Mizzi had “acted improperly” when, as tourism minister in 1998, he fast-tracked a 99-year, €17 million sweetheart lease for the Tigné seafront plot. The report stops short of declaring corruption, but flags “serious questions of governance” and recommends the concession be rescinded. Mizzi, who died in 2021, cannot defend himself; Muscat, his former protégé, has decided to do it for him.

“Dragging a man’s name through the mud when he cannot reply is in bad taste and goes against Maltese tradition,” Muscat wrote, invoking the island’s deeply rooted kultura tal-qima lit-tiegħa—our culture of honouring the dead. He accused the inquiry of “political point-scoring” and warned that “historical revisionism” risked turning Malta into a “nation that eats its own.”

The phrase struck a nerve. Within hours, #Kulturni (Our Culture) was trending, cheek-by-jowl with #MizziReport and #FortinaFiles. Elderly Sliema residents recalled how Mizzi, a Labour war-horse who later defected to the Nationalists, had once marched them through the same streets to demand better garbage collection. “He wasn’t a saint, but he’s family now,” 82-year-old Rita Camilleri told Hot Malta, clutching rosary beads outside Stella Maris church. “You don’t speak ill of family once they’re gone.”

Yet younger voices reject that reading. “Honour ends where accountability begins,” countered 27-year-old architect Luke Azzopardi at a spontaneous vigil organised by civil-society group Repubblika. Holding a placard that read “Dead ≠ Vindicated”, Azzopardi argued that excusing past misdeeds because “ħa nkunu qrara” (we’ll be bitter) is precisely what normalises today’s scandals. His view mirrors a generational shift: a 2022 MaltaToday survey found 63 % of under-35s believe “posthumous criticism is fair if evidence exists,” compared with only 29 % of over-65s.

The Fortina affair also reopens old geographic wounds. The original 1998 deal handed prime Valletta-front land to a company partly owned by Mizzi’s close associate, effectively privatising a chunk of the capital’s skyline. Today, the four-star Fortina towers over the traditional Lascaris bastions like a glass-and-concrete exclamation mark, its rooftop infinity pool a constant reminder of what many see as institutional capture. “Every time I take tourists on the harbour cruise I have to explain why a hotel got 99 years for peanuts,” lamented gondolini operator Marco Saliba. “It chips away at our credibility.”

Tourism stakeholders are watching nervously. Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association president Tony Zahra warned that revisiting decades-old concessions could “spook investors already jittery after grey-listing.” But Environment Minister Miriam Dalli doubled down, insisting the government will “implement the report’s recommendations in full,” including possible rescission. Legal experts say that could trigger arbitration claims exceeding €100 million—money that could build two new Gozo Channel ferries or finance the long-promised Metro feasibility study.

Back in Sliema, the debate has migrated from Facebook to the band club. During rehearsal for this weekend’s feast of Stella Maris, trombonist and Labour die-hard Clifford Pace paused between bars to argue that “Mizzi built the Malta we holiday in.” Not so, retorted Nationalist councillor Simon Galea, sipping Kinnie at the bar: “He built the Malta we’re ashamed to explain.” Conductor Mario Farrugia rolled his eyes: “Can we play the marċ, please? The only thing we’re proving is that a small island can hold two truths at once.”

That duality—respect for the dead versus duty to the living—will now move to Parliament, where the Speaker must decide whether to forward the report to police and attorney-general. Whatever the outcome, the Fortina scandal has already achieved one thing: forcing Maltese society to confront which parts of its past deserve eternal reverence, and which merit excavation, however uncomfortable.

As the sun sets over the Sliema creek, painting the Fortina’s balconies gold, a passer-by spray-paints a fresh stencil onto the promenade: “History is not a cemetery; it’s a courtroom.” Whether Malta agrees may define the next chapter in our never-ending national memoir.