What did you expect? With Labour in power, rabid Laburist Carol Peralta is on a high. That’s why he felt he could throw party in his courtroom.
Magistrate Carol Peralta
Magistrate Carol Peralta, who rivals Magistrate Consuelo Herrera in the disreputable Laburist magistrate stakes, with the difference that she doesn’t drink while he knocks it back, threw a party in his awla this afternoon.
He had a Christmas tree put up and the courtroom benches pushed aside for his guests to stand around drinking and smoking. Music was played and Peralta himself sat at the bench with his drinks and his smokes.
A reporter from Times of Malta was dispatched to the scene after word got out, and when he took a picture with his smart phone, Peralta ordered his arrest.
The corrupt police, who now live in the government’s pocket serving to the whims and wishes of that dumb-waiter Peter Paul Zammit and his master Manuel Mallia, instead of arresting the magistrate for throwing a party in the courthouse – at least get him and his guests for smoking on the premises, for heaven’s sake – followed the magistrate’s orders and arrested the reporter.
They held him for three hours – for taking a photograph of the magistrate and his freaky guests partying in the courtroom. No doubt, because I have some experience of this line of police thinking/behaviour myself, he will now have to go through lengthy proceedings on trumped-up charges, and no magistrate will make the police pay the price of trumping up those charges, not even with a straightforward reprimand.
No, I am not shocked. Carol Peralta is a violent drunk with a history of bad behaviour. I am no more surprised at his behaviour than I would be at a thief being put in charge of a jewellery shop and robbing it. It’s a case of: what do you expect?
If Carol Peralta isn’t drunk and ranting against the Nationalist Party, he’s sober and ranting against the Nationalist Party. He is yet another bit of gunge scraped off the bottom of the Labour Party skip, and I must say that Joseph Muscat – for all his furrowed brows and his voice-to-camera words of concern this afternoon, has little to be proud of in this pastur from his collection of supporters.
Peralta is a heavy drinker, has impaired judgement, and should never have been made a magistrate. That was Justice Minister’s de Marco’s mistake around 25 years ago and the country is still paying the price. His judgements are increasingly erratic and disordered. Who can forget his declaration that it is justifiable to run a man over if he calls you gay and you’re in Mellieha?
Or his more recent ruling that ‘foreigners’ should be more severely punished than Maltese people for the same crime, because they are not equal in the eyes of the law but ‘guests in our country’?
For many years Peralta was also a Freemason, with the Leinster Lodge at Villa Blye in Paola. He says he left the lodge when he became a magistrate, but we can never be too sure about that. In any case, we do know that prime minister Fenech Adami made the first moves to have him impeached by parliament back in the early 1990s, but this failed when Sant’s Labour Party communicated its unwillingness to play ball. A two-thirds majority of the house is required.
Instead, Peralta was kicked upstairs with a position elsewhere in Europe, a method which seems to be used whenever Malta has a problem it wishes to export and inflict on some august institution beyond our shores, as with John Dalli and a couple of others I shan’t mention in this context.
When that was over, he returned to Malta to pick up where he left off in the magistrates’ court. Now Labour is in power and he thinks he’s immune and invincible. More fool he. If the Opposition leader brings a motion for his impeachment now, the government will have to do a lot of crawling around to try and justify not supporting it. The trouble with Labour is that ultimately, no matter what they say, will always move to protect their own.
And Carol Peralta is most definitely one of Labour’s own.
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Aha, so this is what it was all about!
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131018/local/antonio-mizzi.490889#.UrNadfRdXD4
Did he have authority to order the journalist’s arrest? In my not so humble opinion, he didn’t but I think the police had the authority to charge him for smoking inside since no one can smoke inside a public building.
This whole story stinks – it’s abuse of power and similar stories can only be heard of in Afghanistan.
Illum kelli party imma gie diferit.
Less than a year of Labour in power and they have already turned Malta into a jungle.
Let’s say we know for certain that the Times of Malta reporter is not a freemason and leave it at that. Like others before him here is yet another magistrate who has contibuted to the stench of the Maltese judiciary.
This is the time for an impeachment motion.
Why was Owen Bonnici reported saying that he had no power in the present circumstances other than to write to the Commission for the Administration of Justice?
He can bring an impeachment motion. But if he doesn’t, then the Opposition can do it instead.
Arresting a journalist for doing his job is worthy of Putin’s Russia, not an EU country that – so we were promised – is “the best” in Europe.
The AD and the PN are the only Liberal parties in Malta. If it weren’t for the AD and PN the PL would run roughshod over our recently gained democracy.
A big thumbs up to the AD on its statement. Now what I expect to see is a mea culpa on their implicit support of such an illiberal dictatorial party as the National Socialist party, euphemistically called the Partit Laburista, throughout the previous administration.
Here is the quote from the Malta Independent:
“The abuse of power by the magistrate is unacceptable. Throwing a party in a courtroom with drinks, cigarettes and music does not seem to be the most appropriate thing. With proven corruption amongst three judges in the last 10 years, police acting as waiters, a lawyer turned minister blackmailing a person, the Armed Forces commander not bothering to answer questions on the death of 270 Syrians and now this ‘toga party ’, the rule of law in Malta seems to be really going to the dogs”.
Again, the free world is watching this descent into banana republic status. I hope foreign intelligence is keeping tabs on this mob.
Yes, but why should we expect the Opposition to bring a motion for a magistrate’s impeachment?
These legal professionals stick together like hyenas, and the Nationalist Party is chock-a-block with lawyers. Besides, in true Maltese Catholic tradition, the Law is suspended to give way to good cheer and that ghastly l-Istrina during the Christmas season.
Ho ho ho, and the screw the ordinary citizen.
If the Opposition does not bring a motion for the magistrate’s impeachment they shall lose all the good work that they did in the last months..
People expect so much from the PN and there is absolutely no reason whey they should not take action this time.
If I am not mistaken, a motion to impeach a member of the judiciary can only be tabled in Parliament by the Prime Minister on the recommendation of the Chairman of the Commission on the Administration of Justice, typically the President of the Republic.
You will surely recall that Lawrence Gonzi was in this same uncomfortable position when the case of Ray Pace broke. He could not proceed with the impeachment motion straight away. Ray Pace had resigned.
What would the PN do if it were in government?
It would try to impeach Peralta.
If it does not do so in Opposition, it would be an accomplice in this whole sordid affair.
http://www.maltarightnow.com/?module=news&at=L%2DOppo%26%23380%3Bizzjoni+lesta+tag%26%23295%3Bti+l%2Dappo%26%23289%3B%26%23289%3B+tag%26%23295%3Bha+fil%2DParlament+biex+Dr+Carol+Peralta+jitne%26%23295%3B%26%23295%3Ba+minn+Ma%26%23289%3Bistrat&t=a&aid=99853045&cid=19
Was the catering for the party provided by the police, perhaps?
No, this time it was the Gozo Ministry.
I had thought that circuses were banned in Malta. I was wrong.
May I ask you, Daphne, please, if is it possible for the journalist who was arrested to take his case to the European Court?
[Daphne – Yes, I believe so, though there are others more qualified to explain who might be reading this. The thing is that he would first have to exhaust his options in Malta and that means the Constitutional Court here.]
I am happy that maybe it can be done. One of my reasons for voting for E.U. entry was because of abuse of power in this country and that it will be great to cut these kind of people down to size.
There are many examples of past arrogance and abuse of power. A ‘little’ incident I remember was when a news photographer was in a private home (with the consent of the owner) taking photos of the old St Luke’s chimney giving out black smoke. The police went in and stopped him.
It seems to me that in Malta we never really had a sense of what real democracy is, like saying “attack fuq” when somebody is criticized.
Then there is the crass ignorance that if one criticizes one side one is automatically labelled as being with the opposite side. Do you believe that we still have a long way to go, Daphne?
[Daphne – Of course I do. The problem is socio-cultural and it takes a long, long time to change that. People actually think that Malta should be different, that the real democracy in other countries is somehow unsuited to our purposes.]