The revelations by criminals about who planned and ordered the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia as well as other crimes and the promise of further revelations implicating politicians has turned the tables of good and evil and of the rule of law in Malta.
Shakespeare could read human nature. Hamlet set up a play within a play for his uncle Claudius and his mother Queen Gertrude to goad Claudius to admit to the killing of Hamlet’s father. An actress in the play was making too many insincere protestations of love and fidelity. Queen Gertrude was not fooled by the repetitious lies.
When asked by Hamlet whether his mother liked the play, she made the famous statement: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
What an appropriate statement in the context of present-day Malta! Narcissus has replaced Invictus. Our new prime minister who took over from his disgraced predecessor, continuously repeats: “The institutions are working and Malta has the rule of law.” No one believes his protestations and the more he repeats it the more any objective onlooker would say: “The man doth protest too much, methinks.”
Another Pinocchio-like untruth of our new ‘Kink’ is that Malta is living a heavenly life during the ongoing pandemic because waves are only in the sea. Does not the man protest too much?
He is completely wrong on both these statements.
On COVID-19, we have recently spent over 14 days with what in the US would have been 165,000 cases per day and in the UK 35,000 cases a day. Is this the heaven he meant?
If most citizens abided by the rule of law we would not have had Panama secret accounts nor the brutal murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia- John Vassallo
On the rule of law, the institutions are not functioning just because some criminals get caught and prosecuted. Had all cases been investigated we may be living in a state of the rule of law. But we are certainly not there.
Political and police investigative decisions as well as production of evidence are now in the hands of criminals who may choose to implicate some but not necessarily all involved. Is this the rule of law? Had the police and the attorney general taken Daphne Caruana Galizia’s revelations seriously and done their job in 2013-2016, after the Panama Papers or the alleged Allied Group Schembri-Hillman heist and money laundering with the help of Brian Tonna and Karl Cini and went ahead to arrest them, together with Konrad Mizzi and the owner of Egrant, then Daphne would have lived.
The alleged Electrogas bribes and Azerbaijani connection on gas purchases, the fraudulent sales of hospitals, the db Group towers, the oligarchy of Fenech, Gasan and Apap Bologna under the turned faces of the cabinet, with the input of cabinet adviser Robert Abela, would not have taken place. Malta would have had only ‘minor’ mafia activities like our financial services, our passport sales, our gambling industry, our cannabis growing and our generic medicine production. But we would still not have had the rule of law.
Abela, it is time for you and your entire cabinet and all chairmen and heads of public authorities to resign.
If we lived in a country where most citizens obeyed the law and abided by the rule of law we would not have had Panama secret accounts nor the brutal murder of Caruana Galizia. The so-called American University, the death of Miriam Pace caused by the alleged illegal and shoddy digging and lack of controls by the authority and the useless building codes, planning permits being given in breach of all care for the environment, innumerable illegal cement plants, money laundering, the drug cartels, VAT and tax evasion could have been avoided.
Judges nominated from party ranks, persons of trust with more than one employment with the government, chairmen of public bodies blatantly partisan, police commissioners who resign or docilely follow political orders and eat rabbit or look away as Pilatus evidence leaves the country. Delaying or hiding reports of boards of inquiry, trying to stop public inquiries from doing their task and not dismissing ministers or parliamentary secretaries who cheated, received bribes or leaked police information to criminals allowing them to destroy evidence. All blatant and constant breaches of the rule of law.
The entire corporate tax evasion system that the Maltese government created to use Malta as a platform to evade tax in the EU countries where profits were generated. That is not the rule of law. Set up by the former administration but perfected by the present administration.
That is not the rule of law! Even among nations there is a code of conduct to be followed and Malta, with a few other EU countries, clearly does not.
Yes, Abela you are in clear and constant breach of the rule of law. You and your ministers are in the hands of a silent and invisible ‘mafia’ whether you realise it or not. Your constant protestations and declarations that we have the rule of law tell me that I can smell smoke and there is never smoke without a fire.
So, please, switch your message to reality and stop hiding behind fascist platforms with flags and glimmering backdrops of Maltese scenery chosen to avoid showing the shoddy buildings that have cropped up everywhere destroying our beautiful Maltese skyscapes.
You fool nobody except your trolls and blind followers.
John Vassallo is a former ambassador to the EU.