A young man put up a banner outside parliament calling for justice for JeanPaul Sofia. For some reason, he was escorted away from the scene by the police, allegedly acting swiftly on a report.
Rumour has it that the young man was reported for wearing a balaclava. That is apparently sufficient grounds for his removal from the protest site until the police ascertain that he is not a threat to the public.
The police needed an excuse to at least seem to take action against a protestor. The same police who develop world record levels of sloth and reluctance when it comes to making use of publicly available information that might lead to a crime.
Much has already been written about the inept inactivity of the police of the land about the information concerning possible crimes that have surfaced in the press.
Take David Casa’s court case following a press report involving suspected gangster Christian Borg. According to the MEP, the information in the press should have been sufficient to warrant an investigation (and maybe prosecution).
Instead, nothing. Nada. So a politician must apply to the Court to highlight police inaction.
Then there is Robert Aquilina’s Pilatus publication. It is, after all, mainly made up of a series of documentary proof that has already been submitted to a Court. Better still, the publication defies a court order to keep such information under wraps.
Aquilina risked this act of defiance to provoke action and investigation. Once again, the Courts are being rattled into action, or so it is hoped.
The quest for justice has become a hard task involving the shaking of Lady Justice into action and out of her lethargy.
To be fair, the Courts have complained that they are severely understaffed and that unless this problem is addressed, it is useless to appoint new magistrates.
Present and former members of government toy with the courts in a cat-and-mouse game. Prime Minister Robert Abela will whip up delayed justice as a smokescreen to avoid the awkward questions about the calls for a public inquiry.
Disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s left-hand man stalls a PAC committee using court procedures as an excuse.
The disgraced prime minister himself persists in defamation cases against the heirs of a deceased journalist – abusing the courts of law where and when it pleases him.
Meanwhile, the Courts give out mixed messages on the fleeting nature of justice in our times. The news of a light, suspended sentence imparted on a reckless driver who had wrecked the life of a bank manager only served to dent even more the little faith the public may have in the justice system.
Lady Justice is traditionally depicted as blind. The idea is that Lady Justice can do no favours and will treat everyone equally. The blindfold, in Malta’s case, seems to serve another purpose. No matter how hard the quest for justice is fought, there seems to be nothing wrong. Justice is blind to the injustices that surround us.
We have reached a point where injustice is depicted as an achievement. Robert Abela’s boast at the Labour Conference that government expenditure on its workers has doubled to €1.2 billion since 2013 is a case in point.
Behind that figure lies the scandalous mountain of profligate spending on friends and friends of friends. Behind that figure lie the fiefdoms built on persons of trust and a bloated civil service used to curry favours with the electorate.
Abela openly boasts that more of your money is being channelled into the pockets of his Party’s stooges and props.
He is right to boast about this. No amount of yelling “injustice” will change the fact that, come the next elections, Abela’s Labour will have bought its way to a new term in office.
And justice, blind as ever, will not even afford to weep.
Justice can’t and won’t be served as long as the whole system remains so dysfunctional.
The police and attorney general’s office who should be working together seem incapable of doing so, unless of course it is to collude and pervert the course of justice as alleged in the Pilatus Bank scandal.
The system of buying friends and friends of their friends with lavish salaries for jobs either of a ‘phantom’ nature or for doing nothing runs as long as the money keeps coming in to sustain it. Therefore the debts are rising while the old IIP Scheme appears to be running out. Thanks for the ever declining international reputation of Malta for which the PL government is fairly and squarily responsible.
Another article on this website here, referring to the continuity in the inceasing of the state debts, highlights the direction this system is heading to.
Certainly, the PLers still believe that they can sustain this system for endless times. But nothing lasts for ever. Like with Greece where tax evasion, and also corruption was running for decades like a ‘public sport’, which has led the country to the brink of state bankruptcy. This unstoppable system of squandering money for sinister purposes as highlighted in this and many other previous articles, will some day present the bill to the taxpayer.
The ECB and the IMF will be then set to ‘cash in’ when Malta has to face a bail out in order to rescue her from state bankruptcy. One can rest assured that it won’t be the PL grandieurs to sort it out. This will be left to the successor government and they’ll have a hard time ahead for themselves and of course all the people of Malta.
The Gahans won’t be pleased, if they ever realise how much they have been led down the garden path. But the others will be even more annoyed. We have seen it all before, not so long ago and one just has to look at Greece and how it is faring ever since. Imposed austerity policy is no walk in the park. One can also see that by the example of the UK where the Tory government is running such policies since 2010. But in contrast to Greece, the UK was never a member of the Eurozone.
The ECB is, in her own ways, watching such developments because Malta is in the Eurozone. Once Malta reaches the stage like Greece had when the Euro crisis started, the ‘happy buying friends with money party’ is set to call it a day. It’s the arrogance of power and the greed of those never satisfied with anything who never learn a thing, which is speeding up the negative developments.
I think that what contributes most to all the misery in Malta in regards to the judicial and executive system, that also affects the whole administration, is the usual islanders mentality that always prevails in politics in Malta. More so because of the mindset of the short sighted and this goes for everything in Malta.
If I would just for a minute imagine to have the staff shortage in magistrate postings filled the same way like the Malta Police is left to recruit its staff, I wouldn’t like to spin this further. People who get a magistrates job not by proper education and thus professional credentials, but by the usual PLers way to do things. It would be really ‘Kafkaesque’.
As for the protestor opposite the Parliament building, the nerves of the PLers are already extremely streched because their scandals have amounted to such a scale, where they can’t hide and lie about it anymore.
Joseph Muscat has got it all wrong in the end, and Daphne Caruana Galizia is still proven to have been right all along. The PM of the day couldn’t care less, because he’s part of the whole ‘Muscatian’ system.
Malta has learnt its good governance lessons, Abela tells European commissionerPrime Minister Robert Abela meets EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders
rob, you’re the biggest liar Malta ever had. the ex.pm consultant and the present pm always make an untrue statements with intent to deceive, but, Commissioner Reynders is no gahan.
I read the headline of the article at the Times of Malta website and it was enough to not click on the article to read it. Your second paragraph in your comment says it all and that was the very reason that came to my mind in an instance which kept me from reading.