Our View: Committee probe into Mafia State a bad idea

The government decision to appoint independent criminal investigators, to look into the possible offences listed in the report by the anti-corruption authority about the allegations made in Mafia State, does not seem to be going very smoothly. No lawyer who was approached by President Nikos Christodoulides for the job gave a positive answer to the president yet, it has been reported, all of them citing conflict of interest as an excuse. Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis has said that the criterion for the ‘absolute avoidance of conflict of interest’, had made the search for investigators more difficult. A list of candidates, with names suggested by the president and ministers, had been put together, said Letymbiotis, but although they had the qualities demanded, they cited ‘conflict of interest’ when they were approached. And if the investigators required legal support, it would be provided by the ‘legal council’ of the Legal Service from which the attorney-general and his deputy have been excluded. Despite the difficulties encountered, the council of ministers hoped to have a list of names to approve at next week’s meeting, said the spokesman. The government recognises that delays would reflect badly on it and spark accusations that it was not fully committed to a criminal investigation. Such claims are already being made by Akel, which has said that the handling of the matter was supposedly leading to an “institutional dead end”, as the Legal Service was unable to carry out its duties, because of the links of the AG and deputy AG with former president Nicos Anastasiades. The whole thing is a procedural mess, made even more complicated by the council of ministers’ decision to put together a ‘team’ of criminal investigators, drawn from the legal profession. It would have made much more sense to appoint a single person as the criminal investigator who would choose his/her assistants for the job. Under the current plan, who would be calling the shots, or would the investigation be a team effort in which participants would have an equal say? The latter method cannot possibly work. This lack of clarity about the role of the criminal investigators may be another reason that lawyers approached have declined the job. One lawyer might not want to be under the authority of another lawyer, or there could be lawyers, who do not get on, finding themselves in the team and being obliged to work together. The plan of putting together a team of criminal investigators was mistaken and this may be the reason no lawyer has expressed an interest in the job. If in the end nobody wants the job, the government could be obliged to look abroad for a renowned lawyer to head the criminal investigation. Although there have been calls for the appointment of a foreign lawyer, this would not be the best outcome. Probably the best option is to seek a single investigator locally and allow them to put together their own team and be in charge. A criminal investigation by committee does not seem a very good idea.