A short open letter to Mr Tajani

In this time of grief, it is important to share our feelings towards our beloved whom we have lost.

It is sad that a mother and wife, an emotional pillar in any family, dies to leave behind a great loss and emptiness so difficult to replace. I had gone through that experience many years ago. My mother died when she was very young. She was to me the greatest hero. Unfortunately, very few lamented her loss. It seems common people come and go without anybody giving a hoot.  In any case, what can we do?

About two years ago, a family member very close to me who happened to decide to enter public life fell victim to the gossip world of the recently defunct blogger, or investigative journalist, choose the name you prefer. My relative was literally butchered to pieces by the vicious pen and the job finished by her followers on line like roman citizens inside the gladiator arena. The whole scene was all made up and my relative had a choice to make between picking up the pieces of his battered character assassination or to revert to endless, needless and expensive court proceedings to sue for libel. The latter subject should have been the speech at the opening of this year’s forensic year: The delay to find justice inside our law courts.

Dear Mr Tajani, while it is most honourable to lament the loss of a beloved mother and husband’s wife, I write this short note to exercise my right to freedom of expression, a phrase we heard so much lately, to bring to attention, unless you have not been informed already, that the investigative journalist you came here to honour was also a dishonest blogger who made use of her journalistic methods to instil social division and hatred of class in our society. This saga has been most unfair to many and most unkind. In fairness you should not have overlooked this other side of the story. The psychological damage she caused to many will not die with her unfortunate and despicable demise. No human being deserves to die in that manner. Our society longs for justice to be done in that respect. We forgive by all means but it will remain difficult for many in our society to forget.

At the time of writing this short contribution, I am lamenting a great unsung hero: Prof. Anthony Zammit. The mountain of good he has done to our society, and mankind in general, will live forever after his life.

Albert Borg

Gzira

A matter of legal tradition

Reference is being made to Saviour Balzan’s article called A (short) history of impunity and Kurt Sansone’s article called In the eye of the storm.

The two articles made very interesting readings. However, I would like to set the record straight on two points.

Firstly, under our legal system, the Attorney General does not have any investigative powers and, consequently, does not arraign people to Court. At best the Attorney General may be asked by the Police to give legal advice to the Police prior to an arraignment.

Secondly, it is not true that the fact that the Office of the Attorney General provides both civil law and criminal law services is a contradiction or in itself a bad thing. If it were, the various international organisations such as GRECO and the European Commission would have said so ages ago. The reality is that each country has its own legal tradition – in Australia, the Office of the Attorney General provides both civil and criminal law services and at the same time has a seat in Cabinet. In Scotland, the Lord Advocate holds functions of both civil law and criminal law nature and, until recently, used to sit in Parliament. Nobody claimed that Australia or Scotland lack democracy or that the rule of law is in shatters because of this fact.

Both George Borg Olivier, when he drafted our Independence Constitution, and Dom Mintoff, when he revised it ten years afterwards, chose, very wisely in my opinion, to retain the principle enshrined in our legal system that at the end of the day one person has to answer for all the legal services which the Office of the Attorney General has a duty to undertake. 

Owen Bonnici

Minister for Justice, Culture and Local Government

Incitement to murder

A Facebook user, Aaron Vella, posted on Facebook an incitement to terrorism. I and many others believe that he should be immediately arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to a maximum prison term. This is a translation of what this scum wrote: “I wonder why a van has never been driven into a crowd here in Malta. Hopefully this will take place during next Sunday’s meeting. How I will enjoy seeing them SQUASHED on the road!”.

It has been pointed out that this person handles a variety of heavy vehicles daily. Should he decide to take the initiative to fulfil his wish, who will be to blame for not acting to prevent such a tragedy?

Francis Formosa

Sliema