The GSD has issued a statement in reply to Hassans’ response to concerns over the drafting of proposed conflicts of interest legislation.

A statement from the GSD follows below:

The GSD notes the statement from Hassans which seeks to frame the issue of who is drafting the conflicts of interests law as if this was some form of law firm jealousy. 

This misses the point and is nothing other than self-serving noise to distract the public. The  essential fact unanswered by these smokescreen replies is that the request to draft a conflicts  of interest law originates from Sir Peter Openshaw’s Report. 

As is well known that Report notes that on a number of occasions the Chief Minister had acted  in a grossly improper way and had attempted to interfere in a live criminal investigation. There  were obvious inabilities to navigate conflicts of interest between the GSLP Chief Minister and  Hassans. As a result, Sir Peter Openshaw recommended there should be a conflicts of interest  law. 

Any reasonable person would have expected, therefore, that the lawyer asked to draft such a  law would not have had a previous long standing professional relationship with the GSLP  Government and Hassans.  

Leader of the Opposition, Keith Azopardi said: “That is the point that we are making and that  none of these statements are answering. These are smokescreens and diversionary tactics on  overdrive.” 

Clearly there is a vested interest in doing so to mask the political point of where this comes, in  an attempt to confuse the public from what is a very simple and basic issue. This is that if the  recommendation to have a conflicts of interest law comes about because of an inability to  navigate conflicts between the Government and Hassans it is wrong, in principle, to ask a  lawyer with a previous relationship with Government and Hassans to do so. There are hundreds  of other lawyers out there in the world in London, Canada or elsewhere that could have been  tasked to do so.