Power, proximity, and a judge’s letter

On Tuesday morning, when I saw The Times’ front page story,  I stubbornly clung to a fleeting hope that the headline Judge (and former Labour MP) Wenzu Mintoff had written to Cabinet lobbying in favour of his appointment to Chief Justice was some sort of elaborate hack. A spoof. Or maybe a dastardly deed perpetrated by someone who wished to see Mintoff crash and burn.

In this, I was at one, I noticed from the comments, with that Privitera person, who apparently thinks it wasn’t Mintoff who wrote the letter.

But it was him.  The story was real. Entirely, spectacularly real, so Privitera can now lay his brown-nosing of all things Labour to rest once and for all.

But let’s pause here and ignore that abject creature going forward.

A sitting Judge.

Writing to Cabinet.

Lobbying the Executive over who should ascend to the highest judicial office in the land.

If those few lines don’t make you sit up straighter, with your eyebrows rocketing into your (receded) hairline, you’ve become dangerously accustomed to institutional distortion.

Because it didn’t t stop at lobbying.  The letter, as reported in other media outlets, including this august portal, goes further. It spirals into allegations that Prime Minister Robert Abela is “compromised” and into claims about his improper behaviour. That is where the constitutional temperature moves from uncomfortable to incendiary.

So, follow the story: First, a Judge lobbies Cabinet, then allegations surface that the Prime Minister himself crossed lines, seriously, heavily, into “in a normal country he’s got to go” territory.

At dawn, I assumed parody. Malta has become so saturated with institutional drama that the only coping mechanism left is disbelief. Surely this had to be fabricated. Surely no Judge would insert himself directly into Executive deliberations.

After the caffeine-dissolving denial, the awful clarity set in. No hack. No satire. Just Malta doing what Malta does when power and proximity collide.

By 11am, with the lines of transgression starkly drawn and with the sins of all concerned having been dragged out from under the fetid rocks where they were lurking, dissolved denial had become head-shaking wonderment.

This is the part the spin doctors can’t fix: Perception. Once the public sees Judges lobbying Cabinet and Prime Ministers being accused of compromised judgment and compromising behaviour, trust doesn’t erode politely. It fractures.

There is a grim poetry to it all. A Mintoff – the surname that once defined Labour’s muscular relationship with institutions – now blows a gasket in full public view, and Labour’s Great and Good are smacked right between the eyes with the shrapnel.

This is systemic dysfunction laid bare.  When insiders start writing letters that read like constitutional warning shots, the problem isn’t messaging. The problem is culture. The tragedy isn’t merely that these allegations exist. It’s that many of us instinctively believed them the moment we realised they were real.

The truth is that Labour hasn’t changed. It has simply learned to speak softly while testing boundaries loudly.  And when the boundary in question is the independence of the judiciary, even the appearance of impropriety is too much.

First thing in the morning, I thought it was a hack. Soon after, it was something far worse: A mirror of the gruesome face of this country.