Malta’s attorney general during Joseph Muscat’s tenure as prime minister was Peter Grech, who served from 2010 until his resignation in 2020.
Joseph Muscat was prime minister of Malta from March 2013 until January 2020, but the person in charge of public prosecutions and legal advice to the government – the attorney general – is appointed separately and is not a political running mate or “personal” attorney. Peter Grech had already been in office for several years when Muscat took power, having been appointed in 2010 under a previous administration. He therefore remained the state’s chief legal officer for the whole of Muscat’s premiership, including the period of mounting rule-of-law concerns and the 2019 political crisis that eventually led to Muscat’s resignation.
Grech’s role attracted heavy scrutiny from local and international observers who were assessing Malta’s justice system, particularly in relation to corruption allegations and the fallout from investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination. Reports on the rule of law in Malta frequently highlighted the attorney general’s central position in deciding on prosecutions, handling sensitive cases and interacting with the police, all under the broader political context of Muscat’s government. These critiques did not claim that Grech was Muscat’s private lawyer, but instead focused on whether the institutional checks and balances around the attorney general’s office were strong enough at the time.
After Muscat stepped down in early 2020, Malta continued to reform aspects of its justice system, including changes to how top legal and judicial appointments are made. A new attorney general, Victoria Buttigieg, later took office and has been the one filing criminal charges in high‑profile cases that involve Muscat as a defendant, underscoring that the office is an ongoing state institution rather than an attachment to any single prime minister.