The law provides for the protection of workers’ rights in a transfer of business situation. Basically, what happens is that when there is a transfer of business, workers’ acquired rights are protected, such that there is an automatic switch over of employment (and the rights attendant thereon) from the “old” to the “new” employer. If [...]
I didn’t think it would have been possible to up my goggle-box watching, but since COVID, I’ve managed. So, when it was proposed that instead of the usual Saturday evening movie (one becomes more of a creature of habit as age increases) we would watch The First Ever Malta Film Awards, I didn’t kick up [...]
In a country so finely ruled under the Rule of Law that even cases against state organisations are tolerated (I quote Mr Speaker’s faithful legal beagle here, who let slip his sublime take on democratic governance while arguing a case on behalf of no less an august institution as the FIAU) it is perhaps a [...]
I was chewing the fat, duly masked and distanced, with a bloke of sound mind, and similar to mine and we riffed on a theme. We agreed, as blokes of similar minds tend to, that we have no illusion about the state of the PN and the capabilities of Bernard, as they are viewed by [...]
PM Abela said that justice will not be served if all Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murderers walk free. “We can’t go in the direction where no one is found guilty in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder […] If we want justice, but it means everyone walks free, then that isn’t justice,” is the exact quote reported [...]
On the setting of the sun on the first year of His Master’s reign, Edward Zammit Lewis thought it would be timely to take stock of what has been achieved. He took up a whole page of the Times of Malta to do this little thing. He wasn’t talking about the attack, repulsed with contempt, [...]
Every so often, in the gaps between stories about COVID-19, the latest corruption and impunity scandal and Brexit, we get chunky headlines about how the court has stopped a nurses’ strike or allowed a nurses’ strike or a pilots’ strike or non-strike. Industrial disputes, especially when they risk inconveniencing a wider range of people than [...]
The reaction of many good people to the judgement that held that It-Torċa had not libelled Pia Zammit was to be expected. Likewise, I stand with Pia, it need hardly be said. I was going to add ‘and some not so good ones’ or use ‘assorted luvvies’ instead of ‘many good people’, but hey, I [...]
At about 2pm on the Friday when he testified in front of the public inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, I put up this post on Facebook: The post was accompanied by a photo of the simpering minister, who our dashing PM, on his elevation from consultant to his predecessor to consultee to [...]
George Hyzler’s findings in respect of Joseph Muscat’s en famille trip down to Dubai, round about the time when COVID-19 had thrown the world into turmoil, gave rise to quite a few reactive mutterings. Some of these were in the sense that Hyzler had been intimidated by that fellow Glenn Bedingfield’s assorted slurs. Bedingfield, of [...]
That the way the new Police Commissioner was selected was simply a bit of a smokescreen to salve consciences pricked by the Venice Commission’s Report is a given. That the PN MPs forewent their opportunity to grill the anointed one is understandable, if to some minds (mine included) perhaps unfortunate. That the it is up [...]
Far be it from me to distract Minister Fearne from his duties at this time. He can answer for his part in all of this in the future, and his part was anyway relatively minimal, in the circumstances, he was just another minister nodding when Joseph Muscat said jump. There are plenty of ministers who [...]
So there you have it, a doctor, flanked by experts, is undermined by his political master, a lawyer, flanked by - well, if Peanuts Scicluna and the Boy Schembri are anything to go by - buffoons. Just in case cabin fever has got you, I’m talking about Minister Dr Chris Fearne and Prime Minister Dr [...]
I’m not an economist, so I won’t comment about PM Robert Abela’s “thirds wave” of rescue measures. All I know is, the amount of questions as to how they’re going to work and what small enterprises, apparently not much represented in the MCESD, are supposed to do, that were raised in a forum I’m in [...]
As I write this, on Sky News two grinning idiots are being asked why they are out, having a drink in a public space, despite the UK government’s request that people don’t do this. Admittedly, their Prime Minister is himself a grinning idiot, albeit one that has finally started listening to the grown-ups. Their answer [...]
If you needed confirmation that Robert Abela’s premiership wasn’t going to get - or deserve - a honeymoon, Sunday’s papers provided it. On Malta Today, its owner Saviour Balzan wrote about how a bunch of craven cowards vomited their thoughts about the disgraced Joseph Muscat into his lap. These revolting turds weren’t named, but according [...]
It is a fundamental of political discourse, especially in a close-minded tribalist society like ours, to justify burying one’s head in the sand (or justifying the antics of your own side, for that matter) by saying that “hey, they’re all the same, didn’t he do what you’re criticising the other guy for?” Many of the [...]
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 2019, we found ourselves at what may very well turn out to be the beginning of the end. We were in Magistrate Axiak’s court, into which a couple of hours earlier, Keith Schembri had strode, flanked by his pretty high-powered legal team, [...]
Labour’s leadership hopefuls are busy letting us have the benefit of their wisdom about everything under the sun. They carefully calibrate their sublime utterances with an eye to the electorate that will be elevating them or casting them out into the wilderness, where there will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Or some such [...]
When soon-to-be (but not soon enough) ex-PM Joseph Muscat had done his snivelling big-girl’s blouse act after he had published the conclusions of Magistrate, now Judge, Bugeja’s report on the ownership of Egrant Inc, many were signally unimpressed. You see, when a judicial officer uses words, these are used with precision (and quite a bit [...]