Rule of Law, by plat du jour

I used the line “quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” as the epigraph to my doctoral thesis in 1979. It was about libel, which means it was about the media, which means it was about the only real guardians of liberty we have left. Not about state-certified moral auditors. Not about commissioners equipped with seals, signage, and self-regard. About the media.

And, bir-rispett kollu dovut, not about someone who used the line to add an aura of classicism to the role to which he has been appointed. It’s Toni Abela I’m referencing.  I’m not narked because he nicked my line, incidentally, I doubt he read my thesis, and anyway I had also nicked it.

When Abela bewailed, in one of his post-retirement pre-appointment pronouncements, that the rule of law was being applied à la carte by people who choose which judgments to criticise,  he might better have paused to notice that the people he thought should close the menu are the ones who really should not.

The real problem doesn’t come from citizens or reformers being “too critical,” but from the establishment’s reflex to confuse scrutiny with lèse-majesté.

We’ve just watched Giovanni Bonello, a man who has contributed to constitutional propriety way, way, more than most benches combined, being slapped down for daring to suggest that the judiciary is not a conclave of consecrated infallibles. If even Bonello was scolded (albeit ineffectually, and by midgets) for speaking plainly, what chance civilisation – let alone civil society? Ministers are allowed to crap from on high, just not the rest of us.

And here comes Abela, shiny new custodian-in-chief, having denounced à la carte criticism of justice, taking his place at the table where selective “outrage” can be served up. In this arrangement, scrutiny is welcome because it arrives declawed, deferential, and dressed for dinner. Anything firmer, spicier, or seasoned with experience is promptly sent back to the kitchen.

He has been chosen to inaugurate the role of Judiciary Standards Commissioner. Our first. The custodian of the custodians. Because somewhere along the line, we convinced ourselves that what Malta’s institutions truly lacked was yet another layer of oversight, helmed by someone who has spent his transitory retirement telling anyone who would listen (someone apparently did) how wrong some people are.

And once you start down this road, where does it end? A custodian to watch the custodians. Another to watch him? And a fourth to ensure none of them develops the sort of expansive self-belief that tends to blossom after retirement and find its way into opinion pieces and late-night Facebook musings. Before long, we won’t have a justice system at all; we’ll have a Maltese Russian doll of overseers, each convinced that their own moral antennae are tuned to a higher frequency than the one below.

And what of the judges and magistrates themselves? These are individuals supposedly chosen because they stand above the fray; because they carry themselves in sober judgement, not temperamental posturing.

Are they going to accept this arrangement with serene philosophical understanding? Or will some opt for the time-honoured manoeuvre: declare themselves mortally offended by oversight, dramatically withdraw their labour, and continue collecting the full taxpayer-funded package (chauffeur, naturally, on standby) while the country waits for their sense of mission to synchronise with their agenda?

It has been known to happen.

The tragedy is that we needed none of this. Not a new office. Not a new commissioner. Not another official interpreter of virtue.

What we need – what we really, really need – is embarrassingly simple: that those entrusted with the honoured positions behave honourably. That they remember the respect they are due isn’t automatic. That integrity is not something conferred from above, inspected by a clipboard, or audited into existence, but a discipline exercised from within themselves.

And no commissioner, no matter how many speeches he has delivered since retirement, will ever manufacture it.