In 2021, the independent public inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia gave a damning indictment on the state of impunity in Malta. There are two things in common with dehumanisation campaigns and subverting state institutions according to the whim of the party leader. Both have no place in a democracy. And, yet, both remain Labour’s tried and tested modus operandi as a means to seize and retain power.
We have no reason to believe that any of this has changed despite Robert Abela’s platitudes. The MPs who insult and threaten are the ones who are promoted and encouraged. We are called traitors and snakes, not for being caught in wrongdoing on the backs of hard-working taxpayers but for calling it out.
It is disappointingly obvious that no lessons were learnt from Daphne’s assassination. For Labour’s corrupt roadmap, it was less a wake-up call and more a setback.
To this day, the judiciary is still in Labour’s crosshairs. Having snatched institutions, defanged watchdogs and captured the State broadcaster, the independence of judges and magistrates still terrifies those who are comfortable getting away with breaking the law.
This is why Abela is so contemptuous of magistrates. He could not contain himself during the Jean Paul Sofia inquiry and again launched a mind-boggling tirade implying that the courts were biased against his party.
The prime minister thus far struggles to grasp that law-breaking office holders ought to face severe treatment from our courts. Abela shares his predecessor’s distaste for holding (their) power to account, politically and legally, as an affront to his brittle authority and rushes to label dissent as treason.
But the wholesale swindling of taxpayer-funded hospitals, a cornerstone of our right to healthcare, whereby politicians acted totally against the public interest – some might say the definition of treason – is all permissible for Abela.
Meanwhile, from beyond the political grave, the Muscats are on a crazy offensive against the same institutions he argued so passionately should be allowed to work. Joseph Muscat has pulled all the stops to intimidate and influence the judiciary when he found it was not receptive to his every request.
When Michelle Muscat, revered resident of Labour cuckoo land, espouses such inanities as to claim her husband is being bullied, it shows just how ingrained their contempt of genuine scrutiny is.
This explains their unwillingness to be accountable to international organisations. For a while, both the European Union and the Council of Europe accepted the challenges and the plans for reforms that successive Labour administrations proposed.
I will not stop fighting for honest citizens disgusted by a class of scoundrels pigging out off their backs- David Casa
Patience is running out and the benefit of the doubt has an expiry date. Abela has been prime minister for four years, in which time no progress on the rule of law has been registered.
If he had ever had any pretence to a break in continuity from Muscat’s authoritarian stint, his neglect for the rule of law continues to be confirmed as promises are broken and deadlines missed.
That there has been not one high-level conviction of corruption in Malta is only evidence that this government is happy with leaving erect every obstacle toward justice. The vote-buying scandal that stained Labourites’ criminal records after being duped into accepting a fraudulent disability benefit is not forgotten.
No taxpayer-funded Labour Party fixer has been brought to justice from those who extorted citizens. Nor has anyone been charged with trading in influence despite the overwhelming evidence of political favours that allowed incompetent drivers on our roads.
All this shows that the same takeover that enabled Daphne’s murder has not been restrained by the meagre efforts, if any at all, of Abela’s weak leadership. Rather than be held accountable for the criminal actions that left a €400 million hole in our finances, Labour would rather we believed it was a figment of our imagination – as with most problems they have inflicted upon the Maltese, from energy infrastructure to traffic.
When we do get rebuttals, they are hardly credible in light of the severity of the collapse of the rule of law. Apologists charge that the hitmen are behind bars. That paid and self-confessed assassins were eventually caught is a laughably weak argument in favour of the rule of law when those cosy with the government felt comfortable mandating the assassination of a journalist in a 21st century EU member State.
The only remedies to this fact is full justice for the scandals Daphne wrote about and the systemic changes needed to ensure that the devastating consequences of Labour’s grip on power are never repeated again.
This is an uphill battle that permits no rest. Labour would have us believe it is useless. But campaigns work. International pressure works. And, as long as I see progress, despite the threats and the intimidation, I will not stop fighting for the many honest citizens who are disgusted by a class of scoundrels pigging out off their backs.
David Casa is a Nationalist MEP.