Ever since our inception in January 2019, Repubblika has been the target of several critics, mostly of the armchair kind, who view us either as upstarts, traitors, usurpers, delusional, pathetic or power-hungry. There are more juicy appellatives but space is at a premium and, frankly, who am I to judge? We’re like Marmite, you either love us or hate us.
Last week, Repubblika was in court again. We filed challenge proceedings against Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà over his inaction following the conclusion of the Pilatus Bank magisterial inquiry. We had to turn the screws since Gafà sat on the inquiry, for which the taxpayer forked out €7.5 million, and failed to charge the bank’s top brass in court despite such orders from the inquiring magistrate.
Fifteen months ago.
In his conclusions, Magistrate Ian Farrugia had ordered the police to charge the owner and director of the defunct bank, Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, director Hamid Reza Ghanbari, operations supervisor Mehmet Taşlı, director and company secretary Rivera Luis Felipe and accounting officer, acting MLRO and risk manager Antoniella Gauci.
The inquiry had also found that there exists documentary evidence showing trading in influence between the bank owner and Keith Schembri, former chief of staff and right-hand man to disgraced prime minister Joseph Muscat. Knock me down with a feather!
So, as concerned citizens of this country, Repubblika took the necessary measures provided at law to force Gafà to take action and follow the inquiring magistrate’s orders. Our decision to file challenge proceedings under the relevant sub-article of the Criminal Code was an important step in ensuring that the rule of law is upheld. We did our duty as laid down in the law. Article 541 (1) of the criminal law to be precise.
On cue, people were out in droves on Facebook telling us to get a life or quoting the words of the former lawyer for Pilatus Bank and the current PN home affairs spokesperson, Joe Giglio, that Repubblika is not important, when commenters queried why such action was not taken by the party in opposition.
Sneering. It has become a national pastime. Oh, I forgot. We are also called ‘holier than thou’, though we never got our portraits painted in the likeness of saints on festa standards (pavaljuni) in Nadur. Sneering. The favourite pastime of the cynic.
Theodore Roosevelt, in my book one of the great US presidents and an anti-corruption warrior, railed against cynics who looked down at citizens who stand up to be counted. “The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer,” he said. “A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform... all these are marks not... of superiority but of weakness.”
Sneering. It spurs us on to do what we do for love of country, even if some of the country does not love us back.
We cannot allow the greatest crooks this country has ever seen to succeed in evading justice with the help of our inert institutions- Alessandra Dee Crespo
When these cynics cannot grasp that patriotism is not only bigging up whoever is flying the flag at the Eurovision song contest or in a sports tournament, they resort to their choice sneer: “Il-klikka ta’ Daphne”. I must confess this is my favourite. I wear it with pride like a laurel.
We filed our challenge in court last week for Daphne Caruana Galizia too.
Because her stories cannot be buried. And Pilatus Bank was her biggest story. We cannot allow Gafà, Alexandra Mamo and Victoria Buttigieg to follow in the footsteps
of their disgraced predecessors, former police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, former assistant commissioner Ian Abdilla and former attorney general Peter Grech, to use their office, for which they took an oath to serve the country, to rubberstamp criminality, to whitewash the reputations of those who used their office for personal enrichment.
We went to court for institutionalised corruption strikes at the foundation of all law. Roosevelt again.
We went to court because we owe justice to Daphne and her stories. It’s coming up five years that her pen has been frozen in time. But we are her voice. We are her pen. We keep Daphne alive when we show up for our country like she did. When we file challenges in court.
The Roosevelt quotation is taken from a celebrated speech called ‘Citizens in a Republic’, better known as ‘The Man in the Arena’.
The oft-quoted passage goes like this: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
We cannot allow the greatest crooks this country has ever seen to succeed in evading justice with the help of our inert institutions. We might fail. But no one will accuse us for not trying.
Finally, we also filed the court challenge so that the hordes of inebriated Labour Party supporters who celebrated their party’s election win in 2017 on the steps of Pilatus Bank would not have the last word. Nor would a pontificating and sneering Giglio for that matter.
And, as long as there’s an arena, we will keep fighting in it. However small and insignificant we might be.