A touch of gray

Susan Gray was in the news in the UK this week. A British civil servant, Gray became Second Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office in May last year. Gray is the person who was asked to delve and prepare a report on the ‘Partygate’ scandal in the UK.

Following press reports about gatherings and parties on government premises during restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2021 – a controversy which became widely known as ‘Partygate’ – the British Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, initiated and led an investigation into the allegations. A few days later he recused himself after it became known that an event had been held in his very own office. Subsequently Gray took over the investigation.

Whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson knew about and participated in gatherings at Downing Street was part of the investigation. Gray’s initial findings were published on 31 January 2022.  In the report, Gray condemned ‘a serious failure’ in the standards of leadership, and also stated that a string of gatherings were ‘difficult to justify’ while millions were unable to meet their friends and relatives.

Publication of the full report was postponed pending the completion of an investigation by the Metropolitan Police. The police reported in May 2022 that their inquiries had resulted in 126 fixed penalty notices being issued. Gray’s final report was delivered to Boris Johnson last Wednesday and it was published later that morning.

Many of the details of the parties that took place, when millions of people in the UK were unable to see friends and family, spoke for themselves: karaoke machines, staff being sick, a small fight and wine stains on the wall. Even worse than this, was the fact that Gray also revealed ‘multiple examples’ of staff that were being rude to cleaning and security employees.

Boris Johnson told a subsequent press conference: “I understand why people are indignant and why people have been angry at what took place.” Pressed on whether he ever considered resigning, Johnson replied that it was his job to move on and deliver: “No matter how bitter and painful that the conclusions of this may be – and they are – and no matter how humbling they are, I have got to keep moving forward and the Government has got to keep moving. And we are.”

Apart from Boris Johnson’s facetiousness, what strikes me in this episode is the independence of the British civil service from the government of the day.

Can anyone imagine the possibility of a high Maltese civil servant investigating reports of the law being broken in Castille? No one can, because such a thing is practically impossible.

It is impossible because of the small size of our country that makes Malta an incestuous society. Foreigners criticising what goes on in Malta do not realise this state of fact and think that we could have a civil service and state institutions that are really cut off and independent from the government of the day.

There is no doubt that we do have a problem here. It is the greatest challenge faced by any government in independent Malta. Some administrations have tried to give a semblance of respect to an independent civil service, but then belied this facade in many instances. Others did not worry at all: they just took over the civil service and arrogantly used it as a tool of the government of the day.

The only institution that has not been used in this way turns out to be the judiciary: it still enjoys a substantial degree of independence, despite its occasional failings. This is why many conclude that the only way to fight their cause is by having recourse to the Courts.

Otherwise, we have a grey area in which everything starts and finishes as the government of the day decrees.

Malta is justly criticised because of this situation, but mimicking what happens abroad will not help to produce the independence from the government of the day that the civil service and other statutory bodies should enjoy.

Indeed, the perception of the majority of Maltese citizens is such that they attribute everything that happens to the government of the day. They even expect the politicians to intervene in their interest in decisions of a technical nature, decisions in which politicians should never intervene. The idea that the administration can do whatever it wants is so common in Malta that the culture change that we need looks practically impossible. When someone doesn’t get what they want, the independence of statutory bodies is not respected and it is the politicians who bear the brunt.

Can the Police Force be really independent from the government of the day? Can the many regulatory bodies – most of which Malta had to set up on becoming an EU member – act independently from the government that appointed them?

Perhaps this is the area where the function of the President of the Republic – elected by a two-thirds majority of MPs – should figure more. Perhaps Malta should push towards a reform, not just in its electoral system, but also in such a way that many institutional bodies would have to answer to the President rather than to Castille.

Thoughts and prayers

Last Tuesday, Salvador Rolando Ramos, 18, bought two rifles and hundreds of rounds and shot his grandmother in the face before storming Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, USA. Using Facebook, Ramos sent direct messages about his attack shortly before the shooting: he declared his intentions to ‘shoot my grandmother’ and ‘shoot an elementary school.’ He used legally bought weapons and ammunition to carry out the massacre in which he killed nineteen children and two teachers and injured seventeen.

According to relatives and friends, the gunman was a lonely 18-year-old who was bullied over a childhood speech impediment, suffered from a fraught home life and over the years lashed out violently against peers and strangers.

As usual, US politicians confronted this news with a distinct sense of fatalism, just offering their thoughts and prayers. Much of the political reaction in the US followed a familiar script that has been played out repeatedly since 2012, when the tragedy at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School prompted a months-long failed effort to arrive at some bipartisan compromise on gun control.

Democrats blame the political and cultural influence of the National Rifle Association and its gun industry allies, while Republicans insist the problem concerns mental health issues and inadequate school security!

And still it goes on and on...