Centipede walking bus

Camille Bon’s opinion (October 2) applauds the Let’s go to School project and says it has proved to be a success in many towns in Europe and that it’s “an answer to many parents’ prayers”.

I hate (or, not under present circumstances) to put the dampers on this project but dare I say that this is in contradiction to the fact that there are at present a huge number of unqualified drivers on the road due to them being issued with false driving licences as a result of the current fraud cases that have come to light (“deluge” of candidates). Top ranking personnel in Transport Malta are also involved and this same Transport Malta is in on this scheme.

The Let’s go to School project proved to be a success in many towns in Europe. Photo: Camille Bon

These are innocent children you are entrusting to the whims of irresponsible officials and, worse still, unqualified drivers.

I would be absolutely worried sick if I knew my child is navigating the roads and traffic in such dangerous circumstances. Maltese drivers are some of the worst in Europe to start with. 

Add to that false licences, obtained by a ‘deluge’ of drivers as a result of bribery by government officials and sanctioned at the highest levels, and you have a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Frightening. Parents beware.

Paul Brincau – Uxbridge UK

Executive interference in the judiciary

In the last few years, we have had several incidents where allegations were advanced that the executive attempted to interfere with or outright scupper the judiciary’s independence and impartiality.

Checks on what would otherwise be an exercise of arbitrary power are inherently likely to produce tensions between those who wield executive power and those whose duty it is to see that it is only wielded according to particular norms and within particular limits.

Public frustrations have been evident in comments often voiced earlier in relation to what they apprehend to be a pattern of unreasonable delays and unwarrantedly lenient sentencing in Malta for those convicted of serious offences.

It is the right of every man, in parliament or out of it, in the press or over the air, to make fair comments, even outspoken comments, on matters of public interest. Those who comment can deal faithfully with all that is done in a court of justice. They can say that they are mistaken or that their decisions are erroneous. All the judiciary would ask is that those who criticise them remember that, by the nature of their office, they cannot reply to their criticisms. They cannot enter into public controversy. Still less into political controversy. They must rely on their conduct itself to be their own vindication.

But where the authority and position of an individual judge or the due administration of justice are concerned, no wrong is committed by any member of the public or the executive who exercises the ordinary right of criticising, in good faith, in private or public, the public act done in the seat of justice.

Provided, that is, that they abstain from imputing improper motives to those taking part in the administration of justice, are genuinely exercising a right of criticism and are not acting in malice or attempting to impair the administration of justice.

Justice is not a cloistered virtue; she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even outspoken, comments from wherever they are forthcoming.

Robust criticism is one thing; direct intimidation by a member of the executive of a judge sitting in open court is quite another.

The separation of powers does not mean that members of the judiciary and the executive must lead separate lives. Such an approach is antithetical to good government.

Mark Said – Msida