Comments on: Time to change

By: Albert Farrugia

Albert Farrugia — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:33:20 +0000

Of course politics should be kept out of this right? It is irrelevant that for 20 years the Nationalists were responsible to bring about the required changes. No, one should talk about this in an apolitcal, non-partisan matter.

By: Leonard Ellul Bonici

Leonard Ellul Bonici — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:55:21 +0000

@ europarl yow… didn’t know it was you!

the fundamental tension here, the role of the issue, is how do you balance the need for extract information from a suspect with the morality of not using such interrogation techniques that constitute torture.
There is a fine line between interrogation and interview, at the same time there is a fine line for course of interrogation and torture. What is the line in a course of interrogation, should it be a hostile interview? How are you going to extract information from a suspect? What mechanisms/ practice should we use? Do we need a lawyer while we are being interrogated?
Think it will be enough if one just record the questioning . The system might need some fine tuning but think it’s the mentality of the police that should be changed, their approach and their provocative attitude. What happened to that policeman who was caught on tape beating that old women in Regional Road.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmPg5YwLvNk

In America, where politics has turned dumb, dumber, dumberer, and even dumbererer are allowing CIA to use torture techniques on terrorism suspects. Such as waterboarding this has been used since the Spanish inquisition, this technique gives a sensation of drowning without causing death, torture transgress the Geneva Convention but their excuse is that they have to fight “the war on terror”. Another war, as if this country didn’t have enough wars.

By: freethinker

freethinker — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:13:08 +0000

@europarl: I’m not sure whether we are straying slightly off topic here but, all the same, I assure you I cherish civil rights as much as the most assiduous libertarian. And civil rights are not the monopoly of any ethnic group. I agree, in principle, that it is not desirable to target any “subculture”, to use your own term. It is, however, undeniable that it was people from a certain culture who were the perpetrators of terrorist acts in the US, UK, Madrid and elsewhere. I therefore cannot blame those whose task it is to protect society from terrotist acts if they give special attention to persons who are part of that culture. It is, unfortunately, impossible to target everyone indiscriminately and it may be necessary to be selective. It is, after all, normal practice to identify possible suspects and one usually concentrates on those who are most likely to have committed a crime or about to commit one. If a bank robbery takes place, the usual suspects are more likely to be those who may have been involved in a previous heist. Unfortunate but necessary. The important thing is that the law, including constitutional law, provides adquate juridical remedies in case the executive abuses its powers or the legislative attempts to enact law undermining civil rights.

By: amrio

amrio — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:05:13 +0000

I second Angela's proposal for a petition. Anyone knows how to start one? [Moderator - Internet Petitions]

By: Lino Cert

Lino Cert — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:47:48 +0000

@chris
as you day, in this study you quoted, out of 1602 with post-traumatic venous thrombosis 522 (30%) ended up with pulmonary embolis, this means that Nicholas Azzopardi had a one-in-three chance of an embolus,since he had a thrombus in his legs.
In the case of Nicholas Azzopardi this would almost certainly be fatal since he had very little pulmonary reserve left.
A filter costing 500 euros would have given him a significantly improved chance of survival.
This is not the first such death from embolism following traums, there have been tens of such deaths in the last few years in Mater Dei, the most high profile death being that of the young “extra” in the film Gladiator who died after an embolus after a leg injury, despite having obvious signs of thrombosis. These deaths of young people by embolism are totally avoidable, and yet a “state of the art” hospital like Mater Dei claims it is, ignores these deaths and doesnt hold internal inquiries.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:40:24 +0000

@ Lino Cert

Not to start a medical/scientific discussion on this blog, but one large study of severe injuries (450,375 patients) showed only a 0.36% (1602) incidence of Venous thromboembolic events with only 522 ending in Pulmonary Embolism. This same study also showed that those with a real possibility of VTE can be identified through risk factors – age ≥40 years, lower extremity fracture, head injury, ventilator days >3, venous injury, and a major operative procedure. I would have added genetic risk factors (something that was not examined in this retrospective study). In addition, only 50% of trauma centres (and this in the USA) had a clear protocol. In the majority of cases where no contraindication of heparin was present, the preferred treatment was Heparin with leg compression. In only 1% was the filter used as part of the protocol (this goes up to 16% if Heparin is contraindicated.

So I would tend to state that though the filter might seem to be a good idea, it is still far away from being accepted as a good clinical practice standard and this mainly due to its possible grave side effects.

By: angela

angela — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:35:00 +0000

Well done Daphne for a brilliant article. I am totally shocked to read about the system in Malta. I had no idea that a person could be legally treated in this manner at the police headquarters. I was under the impression that it would be like on tv, just as you said. It is very frightening.You have put in print what a lot of people are thinking, i’m sure. What about starting a petition? I suppose we would all be too frightened to sign it because of the repercussions? O what to do?

By: Maria Vella

Maria Vella — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:01:28 +0000

Joseph, I do not think that we should allow any individual to face on her/his own, for a good 48 hours, policepersons in an anonymous room.

By: joseph

joseph — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:07:12 +0000

To all the peaple who are in doubt aboutthe Magesterial and Independent Inquires I only say ‘May i refresh your memory that it was Magesterial Inquiry that found that the Pietru Pawl Busuttil case was a frame up’. So please wait for the inquires to end and findings made public. I also wish ta commend Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici for instituting the Independent Inquiry.

By: europarl

europarl — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:55:20 +0000

@”my name is Leonard but my son calls me Joey”

Don’t worry, the Lisbon Treaty ensures that the criminal justice field is eventually firmly under “Union Competence”, and although Malta is bound to some day introduce the safeguard measures anyway (which safeguard very little), we would also have to introduce the despotic legislation being conceived in the US and introduced to the EU largely by the UK. And we would of course have to open our doors to federal raids by Europol, the Union’s answer to the FBI, which is no speciality since law enforcement is (or should be) a local matter and only liaison and cooperation is required at a supranational or federal level.

But in your eyes the EU is nothing but benevolent. I know, I’ve been there myself up till at least 1992. It is not that simple.

I believe it was Aristotle who once said that it is not the law per se that creates tyranny but the spirit in which the law is applied: the Spirit of the Times. If the spirit is despotic, then the most humane laws can still be used in despotic ways.

Alternatively, what we have today is the gradual introduction of new sets of despotic legislation, while the old Spirit of the Times still prevails (well, what’s left of it). Soon, when that spirit completes its change, the new laws will ensure that our (new) supreme courts would not even have the problem of interpretation in order to apply tyranny.

This can change if the people wake up, now!