‘Absurd’? ‘Illogical’? ‘Nonsensical’? – must be the justice system…

The other day my cat got hold of a bird on the terrace. That, at any rate, was my interpretation of the evidence. The only other possible explanation is that someone was playing badminton nearby with a bright yellow shuttlecock, which somehow proceeded to explode in mid-flight and litter my terrace with its grisly remains.

Which reminds me: there was no blood anywhere to be seen. Only a mess of bright yellow feathers behind the gas cylinder. Hmm. Maybe I was too quick to blame poor old Bunina (note: her real name’s Maggie, which is much more suited to her temperament. But she only responds to Bunina). Maybe there’s a global conspiracy afoot…

All the same, there were other clues pointing towards my feline companion. One, she’s done this sort of thing before. Sparrows have long learnt to their cost to give my humble abode a wide berth. Sadly, so have geckos… which are of far greater help than either sparrows or Bunina with the neighbourhood mosquito problem.

And of course, after eating her prey she has a rather regular habit of puking up its remains in various strategic locations around my home: showing a marked preference for carpets, rugs and (wherever possible) books that have been left on accessible surfaces.

This naturally gave me my second clue. Whatever she puked up on my copy of Christopher Hitchens’ memoirs in the bathroom, it sure as hell wasn’t just Royal Canin.

As things stand, the only remaining mystery concerns the colour of the feathers. Oh, and their size, too. The largest was no longer than my thumbnail. Not being an expert ornithologist or anything, I think it was a specimen of Serinus canaria domestica (that’s Latin for ‘Tweety-bird’) that escaped from any of a million household aviaries in the radius of half a mile… including at least one which has also been the subject of a parliamentary declaration of assets.

OK, so much for the curious case of the dismembered canary. In fact I didn’t give it another thought for several months… until a news story caught my eye this week.

It is apparently a crime to handle illegally killed birds, even if you didn’t illegally kill them yourself. And Bunina did not have a hunting licence at the time of the murder.

Yikes! Good thing I disposed of the evidence in time. But I can’t say the same for the six BirdLife volunteers who now face criminal charges for handling illegally killed birds in other circumstances. Not only did these people fail to hide the evidence … but they even circulated it to the media. You know, just to ensure that the incriminating photograph got as wide a circulation as possible. In fact I’ve just seen it myself, and… what can I say? Not since America’s Most Wanted have the mugshots of such obvious criminal masterminds been given so much publicity.

Just look at them, will you? Those guilty eyes, that look of horror mingled with shame… those hairstyles, those brightly coloured T-shirts… Oh, they knew what they were doing was illegal all right. Why, they’ve got criminal intent written all over their faces…

Sarcasm? Moi? Well … yes. Guilty as charged. But then again, at first I thought the whole thing was just satire to begin with: that some wiseacre had mashed up a Times article and circulated it on Facebook for a laugh. Because that (let’s face it) is precisely how satire would be expected to work in this circumstance. You know the bird has been illegally shot by someone else, so you press charges against the person reporting the crime rather than the criminal… which in turn suggests that criminality is to be encouraged, and civic responsibility to be punished. Classic irony all round. It’s straight out of The Daily Mash.

And yet: bizarre as this may sound, the reality is that a magistrate looked at that same photo and really did conclude that the people therein (all of whom, by the way, look like they might have to be tried in the juvenile court) may have been guilty of a crime just by handling the result of that crime when not ‘authorised’ to do so.

And it gets even better, because all the legal pundits who gave comments on the matter agree that the magistrate was ‘legally correct’ in his interpretation. They all concede that it is ‘absurd’, ‘nonsensical’ and ‘illogical’ – those are all actual quotes, by the way – yet they still all argue that it is ‘correct’.

And what, exactly, does this tell us about the state of the laws in our country? Well, let’s take a closer look and see what we can come up with.

The whole issue began when BirdLife Malta circulated aforementioned photo – in which five activists are seen holding dead specimens of protected birds – in October 2012. The hunters’ federation FKNK reported the fact to the police, arguing that it was illegal to be in possession of a protected species. The police – to its credit – refused to investigate, arguing that “the BirdLife members were highlighting illegal hunting and did not have the criminal intent to break the law”.

Separate arguments were made that the activists are covered by the Whistleblower’s Act, and therefore cannot be made subject to criminal sanctions for revealing knowledge of a crime.

The FKNK’s response was to mount a legal challenge to the police’s decision, which it duly won in the magistrate’s court this week. At the heart of the ruling lies a glaring loophole in the law concerning criminal possession: there is no mention of any connection between the possession of an illegal object, and involvement in the crime that makes that object illegal. If it is illegal to possess something, then it is illegal in any circumstance… even if the circumstance is to bring to light the crime that had been committed.

Yes, amazingly this is the state of law at present in Malta, and it is also why all those legal pundits acknowledged that technically, the magistrate was right. The implications are little short of staggering. For one thing, the above logical thought process leads directly to a naked admission that the law really is an ass, and that application of the law results directly in ‘absurdity’, ‘illogicality’ and ‘nonsense’.

It also illustrates that the aforementioned Whistleblower’s Act – already hamstrung and deformed by all manner of exemptions – is simply unworkable in practice. Even though Malta’s legislation provides protection for people who report crimes – which is exactly what those BirdLife activists were doing ¬– we have all seen with our own eyes that when push comes to shove, those people still find themselves in the dock anyway, without any protection whatsoever.

But all this pales into insignificance when you look at the implications for the ruling on other crimes. Sticking briefly to the hunting scenario: let us for argument’s sake imagine a private property somewhere in the country, with a garden and maybe a swimming pool. Let’s also imagine (difficult, I know) that a hunter in the vicinity illegally targets a protected species of bird, which falls into that garden (not unlike that bright yellow shuttlecock I mentioned earlier). What happens next?

Well, according to this law, the owner of that property is not allowed to pick up a dead bird from the grounds of his own property. It would be a crime to clean up the mess made by that hunter. You’d just have to sit back and watch the bird decompose in your garden, or until the police turn up to remove the evidence themselves.

I am tempted to draw analogies with Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch here, but seriously: the real life experience is more surreal.

Now let us imagine the same bird is still alive after landing in that garden. I think we can all picture it flapping about in agony: it is not after all an uncommon sight. But possession of a protected bird is a crime in all circumstances, remember? Even driving it to the nearest vet to see if it can be saved, or (far likelier) put down.

Suddenly we have reversed the natural order of things: those who try to do the right thing are now arrested and charged for a crime, and those who broke the law are the ones calling all the shots at the law courts.

Now let’s turn to a few other crimes concerning illegal possession. Drugs are the obvious example. It has already been suggested that the police themselves could be charged for handling illegal drugs as evidence… but I discount that on the basis that (surely) the police will have the necessary authorisation. But what about everyone else?

What about that mother who stumbled upon her teenage son’s hidden stash while cleaning his bedroom, and – like “Mama Pajama” from that Paul Simon song – “ran to the police station”? Will she now be arrested for possession of illicit substances? And if so: what does one do with drugs which accidentally fall into one’s possession, anyway? What about that social worker (or, at a stretch, someone like Mgr Victor Grech) who, upon successfully convincing a drug user to mend his or her ways, is given the stash to take it to the police? It is not as unlikely a scenario as you might think. And it could happen to a doctor, too.

And how about firearms? Illegal possession of a gun is also a crime. Apply the same ‘absurd’, ‘nonsensical’ and ‘illogical’ (yet ‘legally correct’) reasoning to a classic confrontation scene with an armed criminal and/or a potential suicide case, and… well, I’m sure you’ve watched enough movies to have an idea of what I’m on about here. Mentally unstable man wielding a firearm in public space… threatening to kill himself, others, or both… and out steps a passer-by (with unfeasibly large cojones) who tries to talk the man back to his senses. How many films have we seen that scenario unfold in? “You’re in enough trouble as it is, kiddo… just give me the gun… nice and slow… and everything will be just fine…”

Now let’s give the scene a nice Hollywood ending and assume the man crumples in a flood of tears, lets the gun drop, whereupon it is promptly picked up by the hero of the hour, and its ammo unloaded onto the street. The cops show up (always just after the action is over, as in the movies) and… naturally, they arrest the hero for illegal possession of a firearm under circumstances which suggest he was not authorised.

I mean, honestly. What… the… …?

And yet, in that scenario, all the best legal minds in the universe would be compelled to concur that… oh, it’s daft, all right… stupid, idiotic, pathetic, bizarre, call it what you will . But it’s also “legally correct”. So I hope you all enjoy your ‘absurd’, ‘nonsensical’ and ‘illogical’ justice system while it lasts, folks…