Category: Library

Categories
Corruption Politics

Corrupt Kings & Exile

In my mind, good old King Juan Carlos of Spain remains the monarch who sat through the 1982 World Cup finals as royal of the host nation. I don’t have a particular fancy for royalty so my knowledge of whatever he has been up to since stopped there. Until, that is, news of the corruption scandal linking King JC to bribes paid by Saudis in connection with some railway contract.

King JC stepped aside and let his son take the crown but the scandal was not ging away any time soon. And it shouldn’t because let’s face it justice should be the same for all, whether or not there is a real or imaginary crown on their head. Today’s news that the former King is going to self-imposed exile in the Dominican Republic still does not exonerate him from any responsibility.

In a statement, King JC’s lawyers stated that he was not escaping justice and would still be available to prosecutors.

I am not quite sure how that story will end but it jars with the story of Malta’s very own disgraced King who continues to live beyond his declared means. While he may believe that these matters are private and “none of your business” there is no doubt that many questions remain to be answered.

The rules of our democracy are flaunted daily by the members of the political parties who have had the indecency to craft the rules to their needs over the last decades. From political party financing, to personal accounts and interests of the various MPs, to the make up of the various authorities that are supposed to uphold the rule of law, all of them are guilty of taking the law for one big ride.

For there is no doubt that if Muscat’s annual declaration of assets were to be believed there is no way in hell he can be affording all this gallivanting and playing around with his imaginary jet-set. The class-obsessed couple (remember the call for a Middle Class for all) cannot resist to flaunt their extravagant lifestyle and in doing so they continue to beg questions that remain unanswered.

The disgraced ex-PM who presided over the most corrupt executive in Maltese history does not need to go into exile. The reason for that is that we still live in times of impunity, notwithstanding the cosmetic changes we have recently witnessed.

There are crooks everywhere, the situation remains as desperate as ever.

Categories
Constitutional Development

The rebels won’t let go

The heat is on at PN HQ. The 80 strong executive is meeting having been summoned by Adrian Delia. It’s time for a showdown with the 19 rebels showing no sign of surrendering their battle after the setback suffered by the hapless Presidential decision.

What would seem to be another long night has been kick started by another motion of confidence in Delia brought by Dr Michael Axiaq. The vicissitudes of the renewed PN leadership race is actually a tiny pixel in the much bigger landscape of the state of our political system. What interests me here is why the rebels insist on staying. Why the battle they are fighting is the battle, first and foremost, for the Nationalist Party.

Therese Comodini Cachia was quoted as saying that “it is not her intention to split the party”. Chris Said seems to be of the same opinion. And so on and so forth. Not for one second does the option of splitting from the PN and setting up a rival, larger, opposition party seem to have crossed their minds.

Make no mistake about what is happening here. Much as the rebels might be seen as voices for change away from the shady politics represented by Delia and the corrupt government, their inability to create a definite schism between themselves and the old wreck of a party they aspire to win back is telling.

The pull of the party is too great and that is the sign that the rebels, no matter how rebellious, are only willing to go so far to change the stagnant system that has a stranglehold on the nation. They are unable to cut off their dependency on a party system built to fit a constitution wrought in its image, and designed to fit a sick method of pathetic alternation like a glove.

I have written elsewhere that a new PN would have to renege everything it has been until now otherwise those who take over will only be prone to the same mistakes that have been committed in the past.

The rotten system that has taken hold of the nation is fighting back tooth and nail. Like zombies in a trance some participants in the political arena unwillingly lend themselves to the system’s fight for survival. Yesterday’s Presidential decision was such an example of the system’s desperate lurches at self-preservation.

Tonight, in the long night of knives and squaring of thoughts, another tentacle of the system attempts to survive to the detriment of a switch towards a healthier constitution.

We are a long, long way from recovery.

“If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.” Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Categories
Constitutional Development

George fought the law and Adrian won

PR 201337 – “Press Release from the Office of the President” does not feature on the DOI Press Release page. It should be there since PR 201336 and PR 201338 are both on the page. I tried to find out whether the President’s Office that has its own PRO had distributed the PR through the DOI. Unfortunately Caroline Muscat, theShiftNews editor, could not confirm because – get this – the DOI refuses to add theShiftNews to the newsroom list.

Why does the President (and for what matters, even the Speaker of the House) use the DOI for his PR? Shouldn’t they have their own PR office issuing its own press releases? But those are not the glitches in our democracy that we are here to comment today. We are more concerned with the content of the PR 201337 because it concerns the long-awaited disquisition by the President (upon advice of anonymous legal experts) concerning the issue of the Leader of the Opposition in the House (LOOH for short).

Let us begin from the end. At the end of his statement, the President invokes the Principle of Necessity as the underlying reason for his decision. The beauty of the use of this principle is that it sets the minds at rest of all those who disagree with the interpretation favoured by the President and his men (and Adrian Delia of course). Why so? Well the reason is simple. The Principle of Necessity is used as a last resort in the words of the medieval jurist Henry de Bracton “when that which is otherwise not lawful is made lawful by necessity”.

In layman’s terms the President is saying that he is conscious of the unlawfulness of his decision and interpretation but a higher necessity required him to rule in such a manner anyway. It would be facile to blame the President’s medical background but that would mean ignoring the legal savants who deemed this perilous advice to be good enough for him to administer on the nation.

Said advisors skimmed through Article 90’s inherent contradictions and in lieu of providing a solution based on law, they chose to apply the aforementioned Doctrine of Necessity: an unlawful solution in the better interests of… There lies the crux… the better interests of whom? In the words of the President this would be the “protection of the democratic process and the serene atmosphere which must reign in Parliament and in the country in general”.

In opting for this doctrine the President’s advisors steamrollered over any consideration concerning article 90 other than the admission that a combined reading of 90(4) and 90(2) could result in revoking and appointing Adrian Delia ad infinitum. Having discarded the possibility of leaving the LOOH office vacant (there will be a LOOH according to article 90 has been read as there will be one at all times) the solution was simple: we keep him there because it is a remedy for serenity.

The ball was then thrown into the political party court (from whence it came) with the President washing his hands of the problem and saying “come back when you have a new leader of the party or when you have solved your trust issues”.

Which begs the question. How serene and progressive is our parliamentary democracy when a President reads the constitution (unlawfully by his own admission) in such a way as to impose a LOOH on the opposition who has lost the trust of 2/3 of them?

The press pounced on the words ‘depart from the constitution’ when reporting the President’s Press Release. It’s worse. He openly broke it. “That which is otherwise not lawful” remember?

George Vella fought the law and Adrian Delia has won. Time to quote Swift again…

“It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of decreeing accordingly.”

– Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
Categories
Constitutional Development

Delia’s Crazy Catch 22

It’s a crazy cycle in Maltese political and legal life but every now and then a public exponent decides to unearth his own version of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. The latest to jump on the bandwagon is none other than the Dar Centrali resident-in-chief Adrian Delia.

Fresh from his visit to dithering President George Vella, he announced ad urbi et orbi from his bedside table, erm, podium at Dar Centrali that he is still Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Party. He then proceeded to issue a thinly veiled challenge to the Rebel MPs (it’s a moniker that stuck). When they go to the President for their individual confession they would do well to bear in mind that should they succeed in getting his position revoked the next step would be his reappointment as Leader of the Opposition.

Yes, you read that right. As a strategy it is utter genius. It plays on ignorance of the law of the worst kind. The kind that might even convince a hesitant President not to do the right thing. What Delia is saying is that sure enough article 90(4) should lead to his revocation if all the conditions fall in place (as they did after that fateful vote) but we then need to appoint a new leader of Opposition in Parliament.

And what does the article on appointment (90(4)) say if not that the Leader of the Party in Opposition should be appointed Leader of the Opposition in the house. Logical no? Delia wants to trigger a Catch 22 loop simply to be able to force the MPs to challenge him in his home turf. Dar it-Tesserati.

Sadly for Delia the law is not an ass unless it is read/interpreted by one. This literal interpretation cannot and should not function. If the Party Leader no longer enjoys the confidence of the majority of MPs then he will not be reappointed. Not unless George Vella falls for the Catch 22. The President will then fall on that member who enjoys the confidence of the majority. And that, my friends, is definitely not the Dar Centrali resident.

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

Catch 22 , Joseph Heller
Categories
Long & Short

Long & Short 3 – Delia Clutching at Straws

“Irid ikun il-Kap tal-Partit li jrid ikun il-Kap tal-Oppozizzjoni.”

Adrian Delia, former Leader of the Opposition, Leader of the Nationalist Party

1. FACT: This is rubbish being peddled by Adrian Delia. Pure and utter bullshit.
2. FACT: Even if we consider the roundabout way George “standby” Vella will ask every single member to confirm their lack of confidence in Delia. The point still stands – Delia’s appointment by the President to Leader of opposition in the house has to be revoked.
3. FACT: Delia’s insistence that the only person to fill the new post has to be the Leader of the Party is a lie. It is based on a literal interpretation of the article relating to the appointment of the Leader of the Opposition in the House.
4. FACT: If the Leader of the Party no longer enjoys the confidence of the majority of MPs in opposition then it is clear that the other option would be triggered: the MP from the majority party in opposition who enjoys the confidence of a majority of MPs will be appointed. This is what Delia is hiding from.
5. FACT: Delia is hoping to shift battleground to the challenge for leadership of the party with his various tesserati propping him up. This should not preclude George Vella from removing him from Leader of the Opposition in the House.
6. FACT: No matter how many facebook posts or poems Delia will use to claim that he still is the Leader of the Opposition in the House, he is, by law, already out of that office. We only have to wait for the President to finish his roundabout consultation and confirm the obvious – that Delia no longer enjoys the confidence of the majority of MPs in opposition.
7. FACT: The President isn’t bound by the PN Statute and has to apply 90(4) (revocation). With Delia’s reading 90(4) would be just a decoration.
8. OPINION: Again we are witnessing a political party attempting to manipulate constitutional issues for its own needs. Again a political party and its troubled leader is trumping the highest institution of the land – The President of the Republic. George Vella must stop dragging his feet and he must revoke Delia’s appointment yesterday.

Categories
Long & Short

Long & Short 2 – The Therese Comodini Cachia nomination

1. FACT: Therese Comodini Cachia has been nominated to the post of Leader of the Opposition of the House.
2. FACT: She has been nominated because she enjoys the confidence of a majority from the largest group of members in the opposition. (read majority from among the PN MPs)
3. FACT: Adrian Delia is still Leader (Kap) of the Nationalist Party.
4. FACT: The constitution does allow for a Leader of the Opposition to be different from the Leader of the Party
5. FACT: If the newly paraded statute of the PN can be interpreted in a way that violates the constitutional provisions then it is the statute that is null, not the constitution.
6. OPINION: the mere fact that the PN statute was rewritten in this way provides ample evidence of the arrogant attitude that the main political parties have with regards to the constitution. They have always considered it their playground and their carpet.
7. OPINION: Therese Comodini Cachia’s nomination is most welcome and this not because she is a woman (which should not matter one bit, ever) but because she has proven her mettle time and again. I was one of those who harshly criticised her original decision to not take her seat in parliament when elected. I recognize her change of mind as an active conscious choice to take part in the struggle against corruption.
8. OPINION: the true test for the PN is not which faction wins the next steps but rather whether the old PN reflected in the clumsy statute changes will be left to die and a new PN that reneges the tribalist aspects of its past will replace it. There is a long way to go.