Read this article by Roger Casale and Piotr Maciej Kaczyński on the religious 'justification' for racist policies on migration. It's written in the aftermath of the killing of Samuel Paty and discusses the distinction between the measured, emotional and justified reaction of French President Emmanuel Macron and the reaction of populists who want to overwhelm the debate [...]
The university rector wrote to graduating students telling them that after hearing from the student union, graduation ceremonies will be postponed to a time when it’s safe enough to have them. We have consulted with KSU who, in turn, discussed the matter with representatives of all the student organisations. The majority of student societies were [...]
If Alex Muscat gave the entire picture to parliament anticipating Malta’s line of argument in defending against the Commission’s intervention on Malta’s passports-sales scheme, the government’s case will be quite simple: the matter is not for European institutions to decide. “Brussels cannot decide what Malta does with its citizenship,” Alex Muscat said. He didn’t defend [...]
I’m not a court of law (and neither, incidentally is the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry). Therefore I’m under no obligation to restrain myself from inferring anything from someone’s “choice not to answer a question” in order not to incriminate themselves. I mean, ask me any time if I’m a fraudster, and after some form of [...]
The NGO Repubblika has today asked for donors to support a constitutional case brought against the government and the army by victims of the Easter Massacre, when government held back the rescue of migrants stranded in Malta’s rescue area at sea. The constitutional case was brought by relatives of 2 of 12 victims who drowned [...]
We read in the Times of Malta that a journalist of theirs, Ivan Martin, was offered a payment of several hundred euro presumably to influence his reporting on the case of Yorgen Fenech. That’s because the money was offered to him by Gianluca Caruana Curran at a meeting where Yorgen Fenech’s other lawyer Charles Mercieca [...]
Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers protested with the judges hearing the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry saying thejudges are doing away with the principle of “listening to the other side”. They said it in Latin, as if when it’s loudly sung and in a foreign tongue it would make more sense. Audi alteram partem … let the other [...]
Silvio Valletta thought that if an excuse works for Joseph Muscat, he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to use it as well. Didn’t Silvio Valletta feel it was inappropriate to refuse the hospitality of Yorgen Fenech, accept his frequent invitations to visit his “ranch” and travel with him to international football matches? Silvio Valletta’s response [...]
Italian publisher Mondadori has published today the Italian edition of Murder on the Malta Express: Who Killed Daphne Caruana Galizia first published in the original English in Malta by Midsea Books in October 2019 and released worldwide by Silvertail Books in December 2019. The Italian title of the book is "Un Omicidio di Stato", 'A [...]
A few days ago, I wrote about the false economies of trying to keep the justice system cost-effective by crushing its efficiency. Governments insist no more judges are needed and the justice system would work better if judges listened to cases for longer hours in the day instead of spending their afternoons doing what it [...]
The revelations by PN MP Jason Azzopardi and the follow up reports in the press about the alleged involvement of sitting and former Labour politicians in crimes, would, in ordinary times, in ordinary countries, start a frenzied demand from the public to know what the prime minister is doing to distance himself from crooks and [...]
Ryan Mercieca, who contested the 2017 elections on the PN ticket, told this website he was still considering running for the seat vacated by the death of Frederick Azzopardi. But if he decided to run, he would be doing so without the blessing of the party that put him forward for election three years ago. [...]
Ryan Mercieca sent in this answer to this earlier post. As usual comments under a Right of Reply statement will not be posted. Dear Mr. Delia, Hope this email finds you well. First of all, let me take the opportunity to thank you for your journalistic work and fight against corruption. With reference to your article published [...]
One of the largest news organisations in the world, the Associated Press, has asked the trial judge that released Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad not to keep sealed and secret documents filed by US prosecutors following Ali Sadr’s release. The documents were filed by the US attorney’s office in response to a court order when US [...]
Karol Aquilina raised an issue in parliament yesterday that may seem at first like a piece of administrative pedantry. In April 2020, the government announced the appointment of a new financial intelligence agency board for a 3-year term. The appointment followed the procedure required by the law regulating money laundering. So far so good. But [...]
The court has just completed an 11-month process of evaluating 117 objections raised by lawyers for Alfred and George Degiorgio and 7 objections raised by lawyers for Vince Muscat, who have been in preventive custody since they were charged in December 2017 for the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The court also dismissed an objection [...]
Maybe it’s because I binged on the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, but I’m visualising this as a middle game on a chess board of a match I’m watching, but I’m not smart enough to guess where this will go. Times of Malta is reporting that the CEO of the financial regulatory body “suspended himself” [...]
A possible winner of a casual election to fill the seat of Frederick Azzopardi, who died recently, is Ryan Mercieca, the leading PN candidate in the sparse pool left to contest the seat. The Gozo electoral district had 11 candidates on the PN ticket in 2017. Chris Said is an MP. Marthese Portelli resigned her [...]
Why is the government so hostile to the idea of increasing the number of judges and magistrates? It is facile to say that such a move “wouldn’t solve everything”. Of course, it wouldn’t. Outside a chemistry lab there’s nothing you can add to anything that would change everything about something. Granted some judges are more [...]
Will clumsy functionaries paid by tax payers to make politicians look good on social media, please mind their fingers? I remember as a junior staffer helping out in the organisation of a visit by a Chinese Assistant Deputy Under Prime Minister or something, which from a country of more than a billion people is still [...]