Can the police cope?

The recent statement made by Justice Minister Jonathan Attard on a TVM discussion programme (January 20), that the proposed amendments to the law entitling a citizen to request a magisterial inquiry to investigate alleged serious crimes would require a report being made to the police, stinks.

How can the police commissioner deal with such reports when he has never undertaken to investigate, by his own assertion, previous alleged crimes and had decided for the courts to investigate?

Simon Busuttil (fourth from left) on his way to court to ask for a magisterial inquiry in July 2017.Simon Busuttil (fourth from left) on his way to court to ask for a magisterial inquiry in July 2017.

With a population exceeding half a million, the police corps is already burdened with so many crimes to investigate, mostly carried out by non-nationals. It is to their merit that police officers do their utmost to solve so many crimes involving EU and third- country nationals.

The force is so hard-pressed it cannot even man certain police stations. This had been acknowledged by the force when advocating that members be better managed from sources where there is availability of manpower.

I cannot see why one has perforce to report to the police and not to the courts, fully knowing that, in previous cases, no action was taken by them. Evidence handed over to the police might get lost, passed on to third parties or tampered with. In instances where a gigantic quantity of evidence is passed on to the duty magistrate (I have in mind the eight ‘pizza’ boxes produced as evidence by the Nationalist Party regarding the “sale” of our three national hospitals), I have my doubts whether the police corps has ample time and efficient personnel to investigate such heavy cases.

Anthony John Saliba – St Paul’s Bay

Decisions on abortion

I refer to a letter published by Phyllis Sammut Smith (‘Abortion methods’, January 10) where she rightly says we should be well informed about the true nature of abortion.

Many of us have no idea what abortion entails. Over the years, our governments (plural) have all but ensured we do not have up-to-date information as part of our educational syllabus, especially on the topic of sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that Sammut Smith is unaware of the fact that virtually all abortions carried out in Malta take place through the ingestion of two tablets over a 24–72-hour period. It is not, in fact, the violence witnessed in The Silent Scream that is part and parcel of abortion as a medical procedure but a far less dramatised procedure that, unfortunately, did not make the cut in terms of our educational syllabus, precisely due to its lack of shock value and propaganda-promise.

Once this misinformation is truly rectified, one will surely understand that it is not Sammut Smith or any sitting legislator who ought to make decisions over our bodies but that these decisions are ours alone to make.

Emma Portelli Bonnici – Rabat

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