Where there is justice there must be a remedy

I refer to the article entitled ‘Government eyes constitutional change following Venice Commission opinion’ (June 12).

It is preposterous that some might try to use the Venice Commission and its latest urgent opinion as some excuse or justification in order to introduce administrative penalties that would fall outside the remit of the judiciary.

There is nothing more fundamental than the separation of powers.

Some may even argue that this is a pillar even more fundamental than basic rights, which actually evolve along with the democratisation process. That is because ubi ius ibi rimedium ‒ where there is justice there must be a remedy.

It would be pointless expanding basic fundamental rights if you do not have a remedy for their breach, for they would not be worth the paper they are written on. No separation of powers effectively means no remedy to breaches of basic rights.

We all know how zealous LESA is in dishing out parking and other fines and even all these are reviewed by quasi-judicial tribunals. Yet,  we are expected to believe that we need the administration arm of govern­ment in order to have an efficient financial crime unit?

How absurd!

Rodolfo Ragonesi – Għajn Tuffieħa

COVID vaccine certificates

Photo: Jonathan Borg

I am one of the people who has been fully vaccinated but still cannot download the certificate because the data does not match. That is what the system keeps telling me. I log in with my eID and the only data that does not match is the date of the vaccination appointment.

I’ve heard of many people who have the same problem and, in one group on Facebook, people say they put a different date into the form and it worked.

So I can only presume some data has been inputted wrongly in the certificate system.

I called 145 and was told they cannot do anything and they asked me to send an e-mail. I visited one of the servizz.gov centres and was told they can only open a case, which means they took all my data and sent an e-mail to I-do-not-know-who as they did not want to tell me.

I also sent an e-mail with all my details to covid-certificate@gov.mt, which has remained unanswered for the past two weeks. In a second call to 145, I was once again told they cannot do anything and since I sent an e-mail I am supposed to wait. To the question how long, I was told they have a long backlog and it may take some time.

So my question is: how long is “some time”? People need these certificates and were promised the system would work. I can’t even see it working in two weeks’ time when the certificates will be used in the whole of the EU.

How many people work on correcting the data?

Marek Czekalla – Swieqi

Bad state of the road

I sincerely feel that I have to bring to the attention of the relevant authorities the state of the road in front of the Jobsplus building,  in Victoria.

This road is dangerously caving in due to the high number of heavy vehicles carrying construction material passing through it, in the absence of an alternative route.

Each time its surface shows signs of breaking down under the stress of these construction giants, a new layer of tarmac is dumped on the affected places to give this patch of road some semblance of its previous state, notwithstanding the serious damage to underlying water and drainage services.

And this is not the only road in Gozo, as the majority of Gozitans will rightly testify. With this construction frenzy going on unabated, day in, day out, most of our roads along the route of these heavy vehicles are being slowly destroyed.

Saviour Attard – Victoria

The right quotation

With reference to the letter ‘What was that?’, the following quotation might interest Alan Cooke:

“The Church is the ship out of which it is impossible to interpret the Divine Word because Jesus preached from the boat to the people assembled on the beach” (St Ilarius of Poitiers, 325-368 AD).

John Azzopardi – Żabbar

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