There is supposed to be a clear division of labour between the political bosses of a government, and the civil service employees who work for them. The political bosses make policies and drive them forward. The civil service, while ambivalent about those policies, is expected to do its best to put them to work. Whilst [...]

I wasn’t a witness to the conversations that mattered but I was close enough to hear the whispers. After years of struggle and pointless controversy Malta was on the eve of a referendum that would decide whether the country would join the EU. Those of us in favour of joining had spent little time over [...]

A US federal judge has thrown out a request by former Pilatus Bank owner Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad’s Hong Kong company to force the CEO of a US consultancy company to surrender her correspondence with the Maltese banking regulator on recruiting a “competent person” to take over Pilatus Bank. Ali Sadr’s Alpene Limited asked a [...]

I lost on appeal a libel suit filed against me by Raphael Vassallo who was offended – and a court found he was libelled – by an observation I made that a journalist who gives the false impression that the mafia does not exist would, whether they realised it or not, be helping the mafia, [...]

It’s been almost 2 years since one of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s killers publicly said for the first time that he knew of an earlier plot that came to nothing to kill the journalist. Vince Muscat il-Koħħu was two years ago answering questions from Jason Azzopardi in court where he spoke about driving another one of [...]

Robert Abela has been pressuring judges and magistrates to hand down harsher penalties for crimes. He’s said people are disappointed by the courts and it is thanks to their lacklustre performance and their lenient attitude that he’s scared to let his daughter walk the streets alone. He said judges and magistrates should stop giving light [...]

I’ve been told before, that when I feel like using foul language on my blog I should pace around the room for 20 minutes before I look up less colourful alternatives than my intuitive original expression of my fury. It’s advice I find myself in situations like this fucking unable to take. Just a few [...]

You will have seen reports of the Transparency International assessment that confirms Malta continues to be perceived as corrupt, more so now than even last year. Transparency International gives one clear and simple reason for this. Five years ago, a journalist was killed in Malta for investigating and reporting on corruption. By now, we should [...]

Pilatus Bank was set up in Malta in 2014 to launder money for embezzling tyrants and tax evaders. When Daphne Caruana Galizia exposed them, they sued her for $40 million. They threatened every newsroom in Malta who dared write about them. Until the European Banking Agency shut them down. And yet, those responsible, have never [...]

Look at this headline. It says an NGO, a professional association, and a non-Parliamentary party said something about something. That would sound like the beginning of a joke, except that the humour, such as it is in this case, is about one other entity who said nothing. There was a time when the opposition Nationalist [...]

The Chamber of Advocates issued a statement to react to Robert Abela’s comments yesterday about a chat he had with an unnamed magistrate about decisions taken by the judiciary in criminal cases which the prime minister thought were too lenient. I found some comfort in a couple of observations the Chamber of Advocates made with [...]

The prime minister said yesterday in his speech that he discussed what he considers as lenient decisions of the criminal court with an unnamed magistrate. Robert Abela worked in the law courts for years. He knows that the idea of questioning a magistrate’s decisions and urging different decisions in private conversations with that [...]

Here’s some free tax advice. If you get yourself registered with the MFA as a football player, whether on a full-time (pro) or a part-time (semi-pro) basis, the money you earn is taxed at an attractively low 7.5%. That’s not just for your salary, mind you. Whatever allowances, bonuses, and special payments you get from [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times: "The strategy document says we will have cleaner air and a “net zero” economy, which means our carbon footprint will be nothing or less. Yet, the document says the government will be looking to increase flights in and out of Malta. "And the document does not say the [...]

Do read Kevin Cassar’s article of today where he spots, while apparently the Opposition wasn’t looking – does it ever? – a new law presented for Parliament’s rubber stamp that will remove any doubt, if any still existed, that the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology is under the absolute control of the government [...]

The following is a letter sent today by Repubblika's president Robert Aquilina in reaction to a draft strategy document prepared by the government on a Sustainable Development Strategy for 2050: Thank you for the opportunity to comment on your document. We share your view that any plan for our country’s future must not merely be [...]

In a few minutes the radio station owned and operated by Malta’s university is hosting Michelle Muscat, our very own freakish mashup between Imelda Marcos in exile and a hypothetical Evita Peron if the Argentian original had lived beyond her political sunset, to whimper and whine on the airwaves. I have no idea what they [...]

Different times: Jesmond Gatt, standing first left, then chief officer at the Central Bank and soon to be Chairman of MFSA, overlooking Edward Scicluna, then and now Governor of the Central Bank and lowly director on the board of MFSA. Times of Malta reports today that Jesmond Gatt will be replacing John Mamo [...]

A Central Bank of Malta statement announced that one “Dr Sir Narcy Calamatta KM” has been appointed chairman of the bank’s advisory board for its charity initiatives. I don’t know much about Narcy Calamatta. I remember him vaguely on TV in the days of the state monopoly in the 1980s particularly because at age 8 [...]

Let us accept, for the sake of argument, that the two men accused of killing Sion Grech 18 years ago are innocent of the crime. Due process demands from us to presume even the most obviously guilty as innocent until proven otherwise. Which logically means that if they are never proven otherwise, beyond reasonable doubt, [...]