The US television commentator Bill Maher summed up how one could recognise the end of democracy and the rule of law: “It’s when facts, policies and bad behaviour don’t matter anymore... it’s when Trump could be filmed throwing a baby off a bridge and still win an election.”
It struck a note with me. This week was full of throwing babies off bridges.
We found out that Health Minister Chris Fearne stopped funding the Richmond Foundation’s mental helpline. It was time his government took over the job of providing a psychological support line to people suffering from depression caused by their ever disappearing quality of life, loss of healthy environment and a country ruined by greed.
Elsewhere, the education minister stopped funding the English Speaking Union initiative in schools because this NGO looked like it was costing his ministry a bit more than one of his many persons of trust who sit, smoke and troll in the yard of his ministry’s offices.
Critical thinking is not something which we encourage in students. Sheep are more easily managed.
In the same week, we found out that a partially EU-funded Transport Malta has wasted €12 million since 2018 on an array of non-qualified politically aligned friends for their advice on how to solve the national traffic crisis.
I’m still wondering how the Pjazza Super One jockey and the former Labour candidate lawyer know more about transport than any of us. You might say that some of them actually discovered a superior road map, free of carbon emissions and repetitive bottlenecks, that took them laughing straight to the bank.
And it just went on and on. Some troublesome NGOs went to court and exposed the illegality of a contract signed in October 2020 under which the Abela government stole Aħrax and Miżieb from the public and donated them to its hunting voter base.
Shame on you all, BirdLife, Graffitti, Din l-Art Ħelwa, Friends of the Earth, for exposing the sterling work of no fewer than three vote-buying members of cabinet.
Endless was the week. The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra hit the headlines with cases of sexual harassment of a young female violinist who had to pack up and run for cover. Minister Owen Bonnici has been accused of trying to kill the story but when it all slipped out of his sweaty hands, he started calling the police in an attempt to salvage what was left of the mess he had made.
It was also a week for Victoria’s Secrets. No, not the lingerie outlet.
In Malta, we have invented the ‘show prosecution’- Eddie Aquilina
After €10 million spent on a Pilatus Bank inquiry, the owner of that alleged money washing machine, Ali Sadr, opened a civil suit before an international tribunal.
In the studied view of Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg, this effectively prevents local judges and courts from ordering her to testify about why she signed off nolle prosequis in favour of the only witnesses that hold the real first-hand truth behind the Pilatus accounts of the Panama boys and the true identity of Egrant.
She told the judge that he would be the one guilty of contempt of court if he did so force her to take the stand.
The week also gave us the financial link between a leading developer and our former prime minister, a link as interesting as the already known dubious money trails of early 2020 between Joseph Muscat, Ram Tumuluri and a Swiss company named Accutor.
Do we see another secret, but always legal, “revolving door consultancy” in the mix? Or is it a deferred payment? It’s going to take a little longer to establish what is what.
Had enough? No, I say.
Show trials are a façade of court justice designed to punish and sentence enemies of the state for crimes which never took place.
In the Nazi era, critics were executed by sham courts and it still happens today in places like Iran.
In Malta, we have invented the “show prosecution”. Here, the objective of the state prosecutor is to placate a public angry at the impunity enjoyed by alleged criminals and their political friends by carrying out arraignments which are clearly designed to fail.
For example, ex-Europeancommissioner John ‘Snus’” Dalli was arraigned on charges of corruption nine years late and just about the time that a leading possible witness developed a terminal illness.
Fredrick Azzopardi, former CEO of Infrastructure Malta, who was arraigned on breaches of the planning laws some time ago, now pleads that his belated prosecution is barred by time.
Again, this week Magistrate Nadine Lia acquitted Christian Borg, a former property business associate and client of the prime minister, of charges of illegally employing foreign workers. The magistrate scolded the prosecution for clearly sabotaging itself by openly failing to produce its case.
Heard any other good jokes lately?