“Regrettably recent exchanges on the nature of the ombudsman… have shown a lack of appreciation if not outright ignorance,” Parliamentary Ombudsman Anthony Mifsud lamented in his foreword to the 2021 Case Notes. He was referring to Mario Cutajar, the man appointed head of the civil service by disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat.
The noxious frontal assault by Cutajar on the ombudsman was not outright ignorance. Cutajar’s relentless efforts to “weaken the office” of the ombudsman are part of a strategy to castrate and dismantle all institutions that still attempt to hold the government to account.
As the ombudsman lamented, “Cutajar appeared to have similar intentions with the other parliamentary institutions, namely the National Audit Office and the Office of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life”.
Cutajar is not stupid. Nor is he ignorant. He knows that the ombudsman’s office is not an institution in the service of government. He knows the ombudsman is not answerable to him. The ombudsman is an institution at the service of citizens and the House of Representatives. The ombudsman himself reminded Cutajar that his office is not there to implement government policies and programmes. Its role is to scrutinise the public administration and “to hold the executive accountable for its actions at all times”. And that is why Cutajar is on the attack.
Mifsud, the redoubtable ombudsman, is on the way out. His time is up. He knows what’s coming. And he’s seized one of his last opportunities to plead to the nation: “Society should ensure that the ombudsman institution is not in any way weakened.”
Cutajar can’t wait to see the back of him. His loathing of the ombudsman couldn’t be more evident. Cutajar’s antagonistic public insolence towards the ombudsman amounts to harassment. Cutajar even used DOI statements to publicly discredit and mock the ombudsman in his caustic trademark One style.
Cutajar now sees his opportunity to steamroller over the few remaining vestiges of democratic institutions. Cutajar is the former deputy GWU secretary general and author of a book on the history of the Labour Party and editor of Dom Mintoff’s biography. He worked in Glenn Bedingfield’s secretariat during his short stint as an MEP.
Cutajar’s appointment as civil service head, despite his obvious lack of impartiality, was one of Muscat’s first and most cynical decisions. To confirm his evident unfitness for that office, Cutajar requested the resignation of all permanent secretaries the day after he was appointed. Nobody and nothing that could potentially stand in the way of his Labour masters’ pursuit of total power would be tolerated.
Hannah Arendt, in her study of authoritarian personalities, accurately described those whose objective is to overthrow, bypass or undermine established institutions ‒ to destroy what exists.
Labour has already captured most of the institutions – the army, the police, the tax and VAT departments, the attorney general and the MFSA have all been subsumed. Those institutions that refused to submit – the ombudsman, the National Audit Office, the public standards commissioner – faced relentless abuse and attacks from Labour. In the case of the standards commissioner, those hostile attacks were spearheaded by Bedingfield in whose secretariat Cutajar gained experience he is putting to good use.
Labour has already captured most of the institutions – the army, the police, the tax and VAT departments, the attorney general, the MFSA have all been subsumed- Kevin Cassar
Labour is not alone in dismantling what is left of the institutions. Putin did the same in Russia, Duterte in the Philippines. But so have some of our EU allies. Fidesz’s Hungary and the Law and Justice Party’s Poland have effectively become one-party states.
Even America toyed dangerously with the slide towards autocracy during the presidency of the anti-democratic Trump. Guided by Steve Bannon, Trump engaged in anti-establishment rhetoric and the dark overtones of “fake news”. He regularly engaged in disturbing anti-science bashing. Who can forget his advice on the use of bleach or his reckless disregard for mask mandates? His regular reference to “traitors” and “treasonous behaviour” to discredit and malign his adversaries left its mark. America narrowly averted disaster in 2020 when Trump was defeated at the polls.
His craven attempt to overturn the election result culminated in the tragic and shameful assault on the Capitol, which he instigated. A country with such robust checks and balances to power came within inches of descending into anarchy.
Trump’s dangerous rhetoric and corrosive political language has been replicated in Malta. Labour’s attacks on ‘the establishment’ still linger. One News still refers to ‘the establishment’ within the PN. Roberta Metsola and David Casa were regularly accused of treason ‒ and still are. Greek flags are seen flying during Labour’s public events, mocking Bernard Grech. The antagonism and hostility towards the free press is palpable. Labour put the face of a journalist on one of its billboards in a repeat of the Caruana Galizia billboard.
Robert Abela himself falsely accused an independent news editor of conspiring with the PN. He accused journalists who exposed embarrassing revelations about him of “spin”. He announced he would be lifting all COVID restrictions as soon as he was re-elected and before he had even appointed his health minister. He flouted COVID rules.
Trump thankfully failed in his attempt to subvert democracy and overturn Biden’s victory. He failed because America’s democratic institutions could withstand such assaults. The most powerful man in the world is never more powerful than his country’s institutions. The same cannot be said of our country. When the prime minister retains extraordinary powers that exceed those of the country’s democratic institutions, Labour’s autocratic attempt quickly progresses to breakthrough and consolidation.
The writing was already on the wall when a highly partisan Cutajar was appointed. The depressing spectacle of the civil service head of an EU country using the Department of Information to attack and undermine the country’s democratic institutions is nothing but ominous.
Malta is steadily approaching the twilight of its democracy. Outright ignorance could never achieve that. Only a meticulously planned road map does.