It is surely a sign of the age we live in that you learn about the assassination of a colleague through an SMS. Late Tuesday night, I was wrapping up the day's work when an SMS announced to me the unexpected and the inexplicable. No words can truly describe the sense of shock that has overpowered myself and my colleagues since that moment.
I first encountered Michael Grech in the spring of 1979. He was then a University student, while I was doing my first year at the sixth form. We used to meet at the Gozo Public Library in Vajringa Street, that veritable educational institution which has bucked the trend and has not slackened in any of its standards.
I also often used to see him there with Maria, a highly intelligent soft-spoken lady who would later on become his devoted consort. Under the watchful eyes of the portraits of distinguished Gozitan legal luminaries of an earlier age such as Sir Adrian Dingli, Michael was then delving in case-law of a civil nature, as I was soon to find out.
Indeed, civil law was his love. Though as a general practitioner he touched most aspects of law, he soon mastered a deep erudition of civil law which made him a highly worthy successor to a number of legal stalwarts on this tiny island of ours such as Francesco Masini and Anton Calleja.
I recall him once telling me, shortly after I had decided to start practising as a lawyer, that what gave him deepest satisfaction in his professional work was the laborious research which the compilation of written submissions invariably requires. His love of the legal science as well as his mastery of the procedural intricacies made him a formidable opponent second to none.
In no time, he became an extremely busy lawyer with an impressive portfolio of clients. I could see that each case and each client was given due importance, and his diligence was exemplary. No case, however trivial, was the object of any sign of negligence: on the contrary, each and every single case, from the most simple to the most complex and delicate, was handled with characteristic tenacity.
In a recent speech, the Chief Justice urged new lawyers to safeguard the independence of the judiciary as well as that of the legal profession.
Our profession is indeed a very broad one, with lawyers moving in and out of professional activity with remarkable ease, and in which former prime ministers, politicians, members of the judiciary can easily slip back into after a stint in their position.
Notwithstanding this mobility, the independence of our profession, imbued as it is with an absolute respect toward the supremacy of the law, constitutes the ultimate check against any high-handed behaviour or abuse of power.
Michael was an exemplary exponent of this tradition. He had a deeply-rooted distrust of the narrow mindedness that in certain instances can bog down the public administration, and he often resorted to the legal tools at his disposal to put a check to such a behaviour.
With courageous tenacity, he never overlooked an opportunity to keep the executive in line, irrespective of the amount of controversy he could trigger. His integrity was legendary, as his clients whom he protected in their legal vicissitudes, can attest to.
Michael Grech's calm mannerisms, his courtesy, his razor-sharp wit, his diligence, his dry sense of humour, and his meticulous sense of organisation rendered him a top-notch lawyer. Invariably, if he felt that he had a weak case in hand, he would seek an out-of-court settlement in the face of the most obdurate of clients; if he was confident with his case, he would pursue it with relentless energy and determined persistence.
His formidable intellect may ironically well have been his tragic undoing: whatever his conclusions, they were always founded on cogent argumentation which could not easily be undermined. It was such an intellectual supremacy that may have induced those most desperate of hands to unleash such a torrent of abusive violence that ended Michael's life so prematurely and so brutally.
The cold-blooded assassin must have figured out that there was no manner to overcome the solid-rock moral and intellectual fortitude that invariably characterised Michael's decisions and integrity. In the twisted perception of such a devious mind, the only chilling solution must have been to resort to Michael's physical elimination. If such an analysis is correct, and I see no other credible alternative, this would be a damning indictment of the state of our times and a grave threat to all those who act responsibly in their offices.
Michael is with us no more, and his loss will be sorely missed by his immediate family and friends, and especially by his wife Maria and two children about whom he so often professed such loving words in our conversations between one case and another. However, his legacy will live on: that of a completely dedicated professional who was constantly at the beck and call of his huge clientele, who left no stone unturned to push forward the most complex of cases in the most adverse of circumstances. He was always forthcoming in the assistance of colleagues in distress, who never overlooked the need for a case to be treated with compassion when the situation so warranted, but who was at the same time always intolerant of people who abused the system in order to vent their personal sentiments.
He will be deeply missed, and I simply cannot imagine the legal landscape in Gozo ever being the same without him. His example will shine on and will serve as a model to all of us and to all those who will join some day the legal profession. May his memory live on, and may his knowledge and rectitude continue to inspire us for many years to come.