Joseph Muscat was in court again today in pursuit of his effort to get a court to remove Magistrate Gabriella Vella from the inquiry that Repubblika asked into corruption in the hospitals privatisation. The man thinks what everybody else thinks: that any face value appraisal of the evidence places him as a suspect in some [...]
There were two sets of laws proposed in separate announcements today. The government announced a new law criminalising virginity testing. The law makes it illegal to force a woman to test whether she’s ever had vaginal intercourse. Virginity tests are a horrible thing. They legitimise brutal violation of a woman’s dignity and excuse flagrant discrimination. [...]
It feels almost ridiculous to explain why people are angry that a block of apartment has been permitted for construction close to the Ġgantija Temples. There’s some debate as to whether the planning board that gave the approval was given the information it needed to decide. The board was told the new building is outside [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times yesterday: "Daphne Caruana Galizia summarised it in one of her more brilliant and memorable analyses published on July 3, 2015: 'There is corruption everywhere in the world, literally everywhere, and at every level. The difference is that in Malta people have a corrupt attitude towards corruption. They blank [...]
A dozen trees were stripped down in preparation for their relocation away from the car park on the side of the Mosta Rotunda. Some people were angry because they were particularly attached to those trees. They spoke of the early morning bird song tickling the ears of people waiting for the pre-dawn buses before that [...]
Worth airing this once in a while. This started four years ago today. It ended with Joseph Muscat's early retirement. Which is nice.
It looked like a fun day out. The country’s leaders of all hues and holders of all manner of office went for a cheerful “walk with the president” this Saturday. You look at their happy grins you’d think all was well with the world. Or at least, while the world went to shit, all was [...]
Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed on a Monday. The following Sunday there was a big march in Valletta. I was invited to speak at that event, but I had nothing to do with its organisation. I wasn’t an activist of any sort at the time. I was caught by the events of that week like [...]
Read this report of the arguments brought in court today by Keith Schembri’s lawyers. I’m not summarising it because the issues are very complex and there’s a lot being hinted which is not being explicitly said in all the words here. I don’t want any of that lost in summaries and adaptations. The following list [...]
Photo: Domenic Aquilina/ EPA-EFA/Shutter stock That’s what he said was on his mind, when Antonio Costa, until then the socialist prime minister of Portugal,resigned from his post yesterday. “The dignity of the functions of prime minister is not compatible with any suspicion about his integrity, his good conduct and even less with the [...]
Silvio Grixti came out of his cave yesterday. He sent a pointed rhetorical question addressed to Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne. Why weren’t publicly known allegations of medical certificates fraud not investigated by the police, he asked? The press tried to reach the disgraced former Labour backbencher to get out of him details about the [...]
This is a statement issued today by the president’s office after a fugitive who turned himself in to the police and told the court he has been working on a construction site at San Anton Palace while the police were looking for him: With reference to reports that are appearing in the media, the Office [...]
Keith Schembri’s lawyers are having none of it. A phone that was held for safekeeping by a magistrate in a case against Keith Schembri vanished for a while only to reappear in another file which was not supposed to be in the magistrate’s office at all. The brief disappearance of the phone is now being [...]
Tristan Farrugia Tedesco is hardly a reliable source of information. He was in court today after giving himself up to the police on his lawyer’s advice yesterday. He’s been on the run for a while. The police told the court they’ve chased him over rooftops at least twice. Turns out avoiding arrest by jumping across [...]
This post will refer to several episodes that happened over the last few days that may at first appear unconnected but are in reality part of a growing trend of erosion of every individual’s right to seek the protection of the court from their government. Consider first this One TV report of a lawsuit brought [...]
In this earlier post despairing at the government's intentions about the recommendations made by the OECD to improve transparency and accountability in public life I also made the remark that "the PN is yet to commit that it will implement these measures should it get the chance." As it turns out I was wrong. PN [...]
From my article in yesterday's The Sunday Times: "The inquiry Repubblika started four years ago is, by definition, four years old. It’s bound to wrap up at some point and people, such as a couple of other newspapers last week, have been speculating that it’s nearing completion. It is hard to imagine that an inquiry [...]
The OECD’s detailed recommendations on improving standards in public life is less than a week old. The machine hasn’t been switched off yet and I’ve started mouthing the Lacrimosa already. Ask me again in a year which of the recommendations have been taken up by the government and nothing would make me happier than to [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Yorgen Fenech will walk, if out of nine jurors hearing his case enough of them allow themselves to be conditioned by inherent prejudices of a regular Labour Party voter. That’s at least half of them. A few of the other half might be politically inclined to wish [...]
