The initial reaction by the Prime Minister and the Labour government to Yorgen Fenech’s verdict was a call for “prudence” and a barrage of litanies about Labour’s reforms in justice. The reaction has now developed into a position in defence of the jurors, support for the Attorney-General, who has a track record of cover-ups and very dubious mistakes, and a new reform to muzzle journalists.
The defence of the jurors began with Joseph Muscat. It has now been taken up officially by the government via the Justice Minister. Minister Clifton Grima defended the jurors last Sunday while they are being investigated by the Police over potentially having violated their oath.
The Prime Minister is now going on the offensive and will pass legislation enabling further restrictions on journalists.
Labour is now on a very destructive drive aimed at further consolidating its power and attacking the remnants of civil society and institutional pockets that it has not yet controlled.
The essence of Labour’s defence of the jurors is very ideological because everyone in Malta knows they made the wrong decision. Defending their decision is meant to serve simply as a contrarian position against the opposition and is now being used as a rhetorical-propaganda tool. After years of corruption, cover-ups and state capture, Labour has suddenly found its love for the rule of law in the defence of a number of jurors who took an abhorrent decision to free a man who admitted to commissioning and paying for a murder.
The lack of transparency in Court proceedings – something Labour is comfortable with and which the Judge herself has strongly solidified with her multiple rulings – has also served the jurors well in avoiding accountability. Jurors should come out in public and explain their decision.
Yorgen Fenech’s trial should also have been televised not only for transparency, but also for the historical record. Nothing is being gained by the Court’s secretive regulations. Discretion and censorship are only enabling suspicion and mistrust.
The public discussion in politics is beyond these matters, as Labour plans to entrench a criminal authoritarianism in the islands. The Nationalist Party is demanding the basics: the reforms proposed by Daphne Caruana Galizia’s public inquiry. Labour can’t even be bothered.
The Prime Minister is clowning around in New York, enjoying the perks of the Premiership without being a statesman. The nation is deeply broken, but Alex Borg seems to be rising to the moment and is filling a deep void in national leadership. It’s remarkable that Robert Abela lives in such a state of delusions of grandeur that he thinks that his clown show in New York will matter while the nation stumbles in its criminal rut.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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