A libel court hearing a case brought by Carmelo Abela against Jason Azzopardi has denied a request by Jason Azzopardi to bring in statements made elsewhere by Vince Muscat il-Koħħu and the Degiorgio brothers. He wanted them to be respondents with him to Carmelo Abela's complaint. In different places and at court proceedings the men [...]
There’s little doubt that if there’s anyone we need to convince that we are getting it together and not allowing our country to be used as a refuge for pirates, we need to start with the Americans. We keep failing. The United States worked with Maltese police and told them to expect one Frank Rafaraci [...]
It must have been of considerable relief for Karol Aquilina to hear a magistrate say yesterday the police had nowhere near proven the accusation they had levelled against him that he tried to ram into a motorcycle policeman while disobeying traffic instructions. Of course, he knew there were no real-world grounds for the accusation. He [...]
Events marking four years since the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia continue tomorrow with the first in a series of public debates hosted by Repubblika, #occupyjustice and this website. Tomorrow's discussion is being held in St Francis Square in Gozo's Rabat and will conclude the stay in that town of a roving exhibition with the [...]
A man working on a construction site fell two storeys in an accident. Obviously, he got badly hurt. His employer put him in the car and dumped him on the side of the road. The employee fears punishment for working illegally. The employer fears punishment for employing him illegally. Spare me the deep reflections. What [...]
The Commissioner of Police has pushed back on a complaint filed earlier this month by Yorgen Fenech who accused Jason Azzopardi and “blogger Manuel Delia” of what he described as “a systematic attack against Judge Giovanni Grixti”. Yorgen Fenech had alleged that reporting on this website and comments made by Jason Azzopardi on his social [...]
The prime minister says it’s high time to speak about electoral reform. Now he says it. He’s been prime minister since January 2020, an MP since 2017. And the first time he does not merely acknowledge we need reform but earnestly says it is overdue is just a few weeks before the next election, the [...]
NGO Repubblika said that today’s court decision clearly shows that Simon Busuttil made a fair comment when he said Edward Scicluna could no longer stay on as Finance Minister after he was made the subject of a magisterial inquiry into his conduct in a money laundering case. Edward Scicluna, together with Chris Cardona and Konrad [...]
Joseph Muscat is bullish about the possibility of the Egrant investigation re-opening. He remains convinced it can’t reach him. That could be because there’s nothing to find and there was never anything to find. It would be because he’s entirely innocent of any wrongdoing, that no matter how deep anyone might look, and no matter [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "There’s another reason why warranting wiretapping should no longer be in the hands of politicians. It is unsafe to give people so motivated in learning what their rivals or opponents are doing the power to decide who gets listened to and who doesn’t. "A 2014 Daily Mail [...]
I won’t take too much of your time, prime minister. I feel I must thank you for taking the time to speak with the police chief about my safety and the safety of journalists. I could say I shouldn’t need to thank someone for doing their job. But I disagree with that approach. It’s good [...]
In the coming few weeks John Dalli is expected in court to answer for alleged crimes the police felt confident it could prove in 2012, nine years ago. What happened in between the decision to charge him and the implementation of that decision so much later? Joseph Muscat won the election. John Rizzo was fired [...]
I am writing to provide a fuller picture of the facts that have led me to leave Malta for a while. I have to do so because I have left room for misinterpretation and controversy that distracts from the real and burning issues facing this country. In an interview with an Italian press freedom NGO [...]
The AUM has gone quiet in recent months and the government’s been keeping mum on this one, too. Must be because the massive cohort of students are still enjoying their annual summer leave. At least, that’s how Professor John Ryder explained the void to me when I interviewed him in his office two years ago. [...]
The defence for Alfred and George Degiorgio had all but one of their over 100 technical objections to the prosecution’s case against them definitively struck down yesterday by the Court of Criminal Appeal. That’s a creditable score for the prosecution which can now get ready to make its case to a jury and prove the [...]
You will have heard that in the next few days I’m stepping away from the island because of security concerns. I am, as you might imagine, impatient for those concerns to be addressed. My family is here, my home is here, my work is here. So here is where I want to be if I [...]
An anonymous correspondent writing on Simon Mercieca’s blog asks a pertinent question. Why is the Attorney General’s office “losing one trial after the next”? Put properly the question might give a clearer picture of its importance. Why is Malta failing to convict so many people it brings to trial? The question is pertinent because its [...]
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Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana Those who, like me, are of a certain age will surely remember what Malta went through in the seventies and eighties under the regime run by the party then known as the Malta Labour Party. The Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud [...]