Mediawatch

Silence of the Nats

There’s an eerie, deafening silence coming from the PN HQ in Pietà. Yesterday night Joyce Cassar of the No to Divorce people did her flipping utmost to try to divorce her movement (tee-hee) from any association with the priests, the nuns, or the church (as she put it not so mildly). And she also did her damndest to underline the fact that she is not working in cognito for any political party. Damn right she isn’t. On the other hand the PN silence of the matter is as politically absurd as Joseph Muscat’s attempt to get his testicle-less Labour linked in some way to any possible achievement of the YES vote without doing anything.

JPO has introduced one of the greatest minefields that Gonzi’s PN ever had to face. The feeble, abstract party line opposing the introduction of divorce pales in comparison with the numerous activists and natural blue-voters who are all out in favour of the introduction of Liz Taylor’s second favourite right (up there with inheritance). Speculation is rife about whether a YES or a NO vote can benefit one or another party. Only in Malta. The PN has taken the best tactical position – it is slowly vanishing into nothingness. Notice. Vociferous party flag wavers and even party sympathisers have gone AWOL. The usual suspects have supposedly “had enough” of the divorce debate. Others, who are all noisy and cantankerously irritating when it comes to womens’ lib and the like have suddenly taken a sabbatical (apart from the random swipe at the levels of nothingness the NO camp can reach).

The PN cannot cope with the fact that the intelligent voter – in a civic sense – would have no qualms with voting YES any day. Not being in control of the critical swinger (who might be scared away from voting AD but is less easily bullied into voting on some misinterpreted principle that only the current batch of neo-catholicmullahs would understand) is very very scary for the PN crowd. They just don’t want to alienate him or her. Thankfully the intelligent voter will also not fall for Joseph Muscat’s false bravado and his empty no-progress brigade. Which means that the less the PN gets associated with any decision the better the chances to keep the status quo.

Hence the silence.

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Body of Evidence

Missing

Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

A calm and composed Barack Obama announced to an already rejoicing United States that Osama Bin Laden was shot dead during an operation outside Islamabad. The most important part of the announcement was the confirmation by the US President that “we have the body in custody”. There’s no chance that Osama will perform modern day a Granny Weatherwax routine and turn up with some video proclaiming “I ate’nt dead”. – we’ve got the body of evidence.

On the other hand, while killing a person is (relatively) easy, killing an idea isn’t half as simple. While the whole civilised world deserves its moment of heady jubilation at the thought of another crackhead espouser of evil thoughts and deeds hitting the dust, I cannot quite fathom how this could mean anything close to the end of terrorist activity. At most there is one less person to blame for the deeds, otherwise it is probably business as usual.

 

BBC Report

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Lawyers in Church

Deborah Schembri, spokesperson for the Yes to Divorce movement has had her license to practice in the Ecclesiastical Tribunals suspended “because she is spreading incorrect information on the indissolubility of Catholic marriage.” A whole fuss has now been kicked up accusing the Church of “bullying” and of weighing in on the debate in a “crusade-like” fashion. Lovely.

It has long been my position that it is useless and anti-democratic of anyone to criticise the Church for doing its job among the faithful. The flock is the flock and it must be nurtured, and sorry if I add “by hook or by crook”. The Church is not only a spiritual guide but also a social participant and has every right to keep its foothold on the social scene. Preventing or countering it should not equate to silencing it.

As for the license to practice in Ecclesiastical Tribunals that is another matter altogether. I heard the Super One report on the issue and it hinted to the fact that a substantial part of Deborah Schembri’s livelihood was being affected by this decision. Now I am prepared to grant that this is a bit of dramatic hyperbole in order to exaggerate the financial effect on my colleague’s career but I’d love to concentrate on this whole lawyers in Church tribunals business.

Were the ecclesiastical tribunal system a completely independent system from state law then I would have absolutely no trouble in the Church picking who is and who is not deserving of being a legal doctor in its own courts of law. Trouble is that independent it surely ain’t. You see in cases of separation that are initiated in a (state) court of law by one spouse, should the other spouse decide to open a parallel case in the Church tribunal for annulment then THAT case takes precedence. The whole shebang is decided with Church Law trumping state law and the spouse who would have preferred a state court to decide cannot but follow into the ecclesiastical tribunal – until the Church decides.

I have always had my doubts about the legality of this agreement on the basis of the fact that the latter spouse has his right to choose his own lawyer limited since this has to be a “church approved” lawyer. To put it simply – if he or she is dragged before the church courts by his spouse then he or she is not allowed to choose certain lawyers deemed unproper by the church. That is the reason I never sat for the exam to be a doctor of law in the eyes of the church. If ever a potential client of mine requested my presence to assist him in a church court I would be prepared to take the case all the way to Strasbourg because – given the link between church law and state law there is in effect a national law that denies people their right to a lawyer in certain cases.

Deborah Schembri has not explained how her “livelihood” came from conniving with this state of affairs in which Church law sits uncomfortably with State law. Her quasi-apologetic press conference shows me rather that she would be glad to return to the status quo ante – defending clients as  a Church approved lawyer. It makes me wonder whether Deborah and her colleagues at the press conference (Varist and Michael Falzon) have not got the wrong end of the stick…

It’s not just about yes to divorce. It is also about being consistent about what we all want.

On Referendum Day, J’accuse would vote Yes to Divorce even though the result would be as useful in this lay world of ours as a license to practice as a lawyer in the Ecclesiastical Tribunals.

 

Fresh Basil

Wandering around the streets of the island on the various errands that have become onerous due to the forthcoming festive occasion I couldn’t help but notice a few fresh frescoes painted on public walls. These graffitti consisted mainly of slogans such as “Censorship offends me” or “I have seen the great minds of my generation killed by madness”. The former was on a wall outside University and the second on the floor of the slope near Balluta church. Both slogans were signed “Basil” and this must be Malta’s very own Banksy. J’accuse has long called for this kind of affirmative street art that can shake people into thinking as they go about their daily affairs…. Basil is a good start. There is much more the “artistic” community can get up to beyond the whinging about censorship and pandering to journalists hoping to fill a few columns with straightforward reporting.

Hats off then to Basil and may we see more of his/her works decorating giving us street food for thought.

 

The Common Good Nazis

Austin Bencini has been busy spinning the “hurt” every single anti-divorce lobbyist must surely have felt when their position on the Common Good was equated to that of the Nazis. How bloody typical. “Twegga‘” (it hurts) is a common adjective in our Don Camillo and Peppone political parlance. It is a technique favoured by the politician who was dying for an excuse to avoid the subject matter and discovers that the opponent might just have thrown him a lifeline with some vague and spurious accusation. Twegga‘ is the political discussion equivalent of the footballer faking an injury and squirming on the ground in the hope of conning the referee into an undeserved send-off.

So there you have Bencini and the anti-divorce parade taking a break from the God Will’s It theories to switch to the sympathy approach. “We have been unjustly accused of being Nazis”. Not. From the little I have read of the yawn-inducing exchanges between the army for marriage and the battalion of the second marriage nothing could be further from the truth. It’s no as though the fact that equating the Nazi arguments for the common good to those of Austin Bencini will change anything from the actual substance of the debate. But Austin does not care about that does he? He cares about labelling his opponents as liars while squirming on the ground faking a career-threatening injury.

Now where’s the referee?