The recent rejection of former justice minister Edward Zammit Lewis as Malta’s member of the General Court of the European Union speaks of a clash between the parameters of decency as interpreted by Robert Abela’s government with those in the civilised world in general.
Abela thinks that a former justice minister caught in the act of texting 17 Black owner Yorgen Fenech about court proceedings against Fenech is a good candidate for such an important institution of the European Union.
Abela must also think that the same justice minister who made an extraordinary effort to fend off the implementation of the recommendations of the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry is the best person he could find for the job as arbiter of right and wrong between states and institutions in Luxembourg.
Indeed, Abela probably feels that Zammit Lewis is to be rewarded for his efforts to ensure that criminal instruments and offences, persecuted in virtually all of Europe, like Unexplained Wealth, Abuse of Public Office and Obstruction of Justice, remain firmly out of our criminal code.
Well, the board of experts tasked with examining Abela’s nomination had a very different view. Evidently, the limits of what is considered decent for Abela goes far beyond the limits of decency for the experts’ panel.
The rules of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which includes the Court of Justice and the General Court, say that judges are “chosen from among individuals whose independence is beyond doubt and who possess the qualifications required for appointment, or who are of recognised competence”.
Judging by Zammit Lewis’s reaction to his rejection, quoting “incessant efforts from the PN” to undermine his nomination, we can take it that he failed the independence part of the test and not the competence part.
I read with great sadness how the memory of our beloved Karl Gouder was invoked at a partisan event- Peter Agius
His reaction of pinning his rejection on the PN is also very telling of how the stretch of decency is seen by a number of Labour government protagonists. To Zammit Lewis it is simply inconceivable that the independent experts on the panel came to the conclusion on their own of doubting the wisdom of his nomination to the court.
There must surely have been a hidden hand, he and Labour think. A group of men and women tasked to assess suitability for office in the most impartial and most sensitive forum in Europe must be lobbied properly or, if need be, improperly, one way or another, they think.
This train of thought is scary. Abela’s limits to decency are way off track, I say, also by Maltese standards. We have another recent case to show us that. This week I read, with great sadness, how the memory of our beloved Karl Gouder had to be invoked where it surely did not belong – at a partisan event with partisan political jibes.
The decency of the leader of the Nationalist Party, Bernard Grech in inviting a Labour delegation to party headquarters to pay homage to Gouder and the nice gesture of Abela and company in attending soon turned sour after the prime minister found it fitting to claim Grech had set a “trap” when issuing the invitation. Abela was referring to what PN officials, under oath, had informed the inquiring magistrate about what Abela had stated in their presence.
To Abela, once again, the flexibility of concepts of decency, and, it seems, legality, mean that private discussions remain private, even if they concern a very serious matter under police investigation. Again, we see a direct clash between Abela’s limits of decency with the limits of others.
To many witnessing the political class squabbling even on something like this is indeed upsetting. You could be tempted to cast a shadow over all politicians. But that’s not right. There are many, on all sides of the political spectrum, who will strive to be decent.
Let’s not allow politicians to negotiate the limits of decency.
Peter Agius is a Nationalist Party MEP.