Walkout or washout

Years back, in my younger days, I recall campaigning over the privileges accorded to parliamentarians. That was 25 years ago.

It was the Alternattiva Demokratika days and the campaign was named "Privileġġi żutt". It was aimed at highlighting the way Parliament would drag its citizens in front of the House and literally judge them over their impertinence.

This week started off with Simon Busuttil as Leader of Opposition walking out of Parliament after a ruling by the Speaker of the House.

Standing orders have been there for years. And for 25 of those years, no one in the former administration dared or cared to change them. Now all of a sudden, they have become standing orders that are in force. Their use and abuse have become a problem.

To me and most other people, the walkout was a case of first-class childishness.

Busuttil felt more than simply aggrieved by the fact that the Prime Minister had asked the Speaker, Anglu Farrugia, to make a ruling unless Busuttil substantiated where, how and when political interference had taken place in the decision not to arraign John Dalli. The Speaker ruled against Busuttil.

The Speaker's ruling was consonant with all the rulings carried out by previous speakers. Needless to say, they included Speakers Lawrence Gonzi, Michael Frendo and Louis Galea.

And if anyone cared to look back, they would have seen the request for a ruling by people such as Eddie Fenech Adami.

But Dr Busuttil seems to think otherwise. He cried foul, and insisted that the country was spiralling into some dark chapter similar to what is happening in Belarus (my analogy). Belarus, according to an interview carried out by Noel Grima last Sunday, is in fact an island of peace and stability.

Yes, it is true, Simon Busuttil has argued that John Rizzo is a man of integrity and that everyone agrees with him.

Well, if you do not mind, I will raise a finger and a hand and an arm and declare that I disagree with his assessment of Rizzo.

My memory of Rizzo is of a policeman who sat and, shall we say, offered his obedience and loyalty to disgraced Police Commissioner Lawrence Pullicino and was also the policeman who accompanied Pietru Pawl Busuttil into the courts when Busuttil was falsely accused of having killed Raymond Caruana.

Simon Busuttil was of course too young or not around to remember this.

John Rizzo is of course not responsible for the frame-ups and fuck-ups of yesteryear, but if we were to talk of integrity, then I would wonder why other police officers were not awarded the same médaille d'honneur as that issued by Busuttil.

I have never respected John Rizzo, not because he is not an affable character, but simply because in his long posting as commissioner, there were numerous occasions when I faulted the police for their incompetence, their attitude and their inconsistencies.

As Simon Busuttil stamped his feet and called for the new commissioner of police to resign, the Queen of Bile, the epitome of darkness, hatred and the closest appendage to the Busuttil camp, was writing an article insinuating that the NEW commissioner was having it off with one of his staff.

What a wonderful coincidence.

What a great pity that the middle-class, English-speaking milieu is the same posse of sycophants who take umbrage if any of their incestuous relationships are aired in the public domain.

I mean, they all make me throw up.

A bunch of sanctimonious and self-absorbed snobs.

That kind of dark behaviour does not seem to bother Mario de Marco, Beppe Fenech Adami, Chris Said and of course Simon Busuttil.

Simon Busuttil has argued that, under oath, John Rizzo said that there had been no political interference to force him to arraign John Dalli. So Busuttil deduced that there had been political interference to force the new commissioner, Peter Paul Zammit, not to arraign John Dalli.

I guess we call this a new form of lateral thinking: a more refined version of Debono's famous and silly lateral-thinking approach. Or could it be speculation. In our world of journalism, whenever we speculate, we end up spending Monday morning in court.

Nowhere in his assessment has Busuttil asked whether the evidence that Rizzo had was based on hot air or hard evidence, or whether the new commissioner was perhaps not as fickle and trigger-happy as the previous one.

If something does not go his way, as was the case in the speaker's ruling, Busuttil declares that we are the worst country in Europe.

Ommi ma.

But that is beside the point, because anyone who has any sense will come to the conclusion that no matter what we think or say, the whole Dalli case is political, has been politicised and is a bloody mess.

Okay, okay, Dalli is no virgin and is not eligible for sainthood, but that is not the point.

Malta is not Belarus, and the rule of law and the presumption of innocence are supreme.

More importantly, we also know that Dr Busuttil and his two deputies, who follow him like two faithful hunting hounds, understand that they are perhaps jumping the gun when they argue that someone should have been arraigned when they know fuck all about the case.

I am sure that, for example, Beppe and Mario have not even read the OLAF report.

Everyone is talking about Dalli, and really I can understand that everyone finds the whole subject nauseating. I too would like to close the chapter and put everything behind me, but perhaps Busuttil should use the same zeal in quoting what OLAF has, in fact, said.

That is, Gayle Kimberley should have been prosecuted. That is in the report.

But I guess everyone knows that Gayle Kimberley is not Silvio Zammit or John Dalli.

So why, Dr Busuttil, have you not asked why Ms Kimberley was not prosecuted?

Why? Could there be some interference?  I mean, let us face it, Gayle worked closely with some former government big heads!

And I guess the point to be made here is, where is the real political interference?

Note: The Freedom House report on Belarus (not Noel Grima's ass-licking interview in The Independent) says its September 2012 parliamentary elections were neither free nor fair and once again resulted in a legislature that lacked any opposition representation. Although Belarus released two political prisoners in the spring, the authorities held at least a dozen more. The regime of President Alyaksandr Lukashenko continued to crack down on all forms of protest, further concentrate power in the hands of Lukashenko's sons, maintain tight control over the media and harass leaders of internet news sites.