How in God's name have we come to this?
The magistrate celebrates her birthday with the people from Super One
The Sunday Times reports today that the police have ‘suggested’ to the Nadur council that they (the police) vet the lyrics of any songs to be played at the upcoming carnival, to eradicate anything ‘offensive’ and ‘vulgar’. The Nadur council has acceded to the police request.
The bands and singers who are to perform at the carnival SHOULD NOT give their lyrics to the police or the council. This is an outrageous demand that hits at the very essence of the democratic principle. Whether the law allows the police to do this is not the point. The point is that it is not just unacceptable, but it is dangerous: the thin end of the wedge and the start of the slippery slope on which this country is now standing once more.
The performers should take a stand and not give in. If they do, then they cannot complain about the matter or protest about it, because they will have colluded in this shocking and disturbing oppression.
Police Commissioner John Rizzo is going too far in interpreting the law literally, washing his hands of situations like Pilate and claiming that he has no discretion when he does. We saw this already in the prosecution of a 21-year-old student editor and a dirty story published in a campus newsletter.#
I am appalled – but I am not surprised. Police Commissioner John Rizzo was the police officer who accompanied Pietru Pawl Busuttil to court on that trumped-up charge that had the country, once more, up in arms back in those days which most of us would rather forget but find it difficult to do so.
I had written about it at the time he was appointed commissioner of police, and said that a person’s past will invariably return to haunt them, and that photograph of him walking a shattered, beaten and intimidated Pietru Pawl Busuttil into court to face charges which he must have known were false was so damning that his appointment could never be countenanced.
And if he didn’t know the charges were false, then what kind of a police officer was he – and that is equally damning.
Poor decisions taken when important appointments are made will eventually blow up in one’s face. We saw that with Noel Arrigo, who was appointed to the bench against all common sense. We are seeing that with Robert Musumeci, who was allowed to stand on the Nationalist ticket in 2008 even though the party hierarchy knew that he was having a clandestine affair with a magistrate and Labour Party insider, which made him both an immoral cheat and a potential Trojan horse. And we are seeing the same now with the police commissioner, who has increasingly begun to reveal that his way of thinking, despite the passage of years, is pretty much commensurate with – never mind. We are seeing it, too, with the result of Labour’s rash appointment of one particular lady magistrate without proper scrutiny.
Saviour Balzan misses the point in his ill-thought-out article in Malta Today this morning. This is not about private lives. This is about character.
49 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
I haven’t seen Balzan’s article yet but is it something in this vein?
Labour Party spokesman Gavin Gulia calls for George Grech’s resignation to restore the public’s trust in the police force.
Chronicles of a Police Commissioner, Malta Today 28th Oct. 2001
When former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo and former Judge Patrick Vella were accused of some very serious crimes linked to bribes by an imprisoned drug trafficker, they hung on to their posts.
It was only after a general public outcry that the two men resigned but not without giving the impression in their parting letter that somewhere somehow they were honourable men.
When former Police Commissioner George Grech made a fool of himself and the police force he refused to even consider the word resignation.
Only after he entertained the whole of Island in court with his sex escapades, was he finally forced to accept the inevitability of resigning.- Malta Today : 27th April, 2003
Police Commissioner John Rizzo is showing his true colours 30 years later. The nightmare never ends. Same bullies, same story, it never ends.
Ciommissioner Rizzo stop playing the magistrate’s way. The earlier her resignation is tendered the better for one and all. You should not waste people’s money in false accusations against those who blew the whistle on the magistrate and her boyfriend. They ruined themselves and don’t let any sleazy police friends they might have ruin your reputation.
Nothing to do with the article, but with the photo… because I’ve been seeing it many times now. I have one burning question: Which of those 3 ladies is Scerri Herrera?
The one between two men on the left, the middle one or the one whose face is in another man’s? It seems they look a lot alike!
[Daphne – The one sandwiched between Super One hatchet-man Charlon Gouder (with his arm around her waist) and Jason Micallef’s sidekick Jonathan. The other one who looks like her is her daughter.]
Which one of them is the magistrate? There shouldn’t be a magistrate in this photo.
Well done to the police. We have to be firm and put a stop to the decadence that’s eating away at the moral fibre of our society. Please don’t let it come to this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4xD8j8ye9k
What moral fibre, Leonard? Have you been to a church-sponsored village festa lately?
Please tell me you’re being ironic, Leonard.
PS Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Boy, am I showing my age!
With apologies to Ruzar Briffa:
Il-Kotra qamet f’daqqa – u għajtet: “Le Pulizija!
Miskin min ikasbarni, – miskin min jidħak bija!’
You rightly ask, how did we come to this. The Prime Minister must take action. This opinion forms part of today’s Sunday Times editorial.
Who will decide which voices are ill-motivated? Here a finger seems to be pointed at PN backbenchers. The rot seems to possibly run much, much deeper than the police force and aspects of the magistratura.
I will not put up with living in a country which is not liberal. We have witnessed the past, and it is inconceivable that the police in this day and age request scrutiny of music lyrics.
This fact together with the silence in the media re Magistrate Consuelo indicate what kind of country we are really living in. Notwithstanding that we boast about being in the EU etc., we are in reality a blown-up Sicilian town where omerta and Big Mama (The State) reign supreme.
[Daphne – Sicily is in the EU too.]
It is up to each and every one of us to stand up and be counted since we are living under the constant threat of being gobbled up by the state, police, church etc.
Finally, Commissioner Rizzo, please grow up and mature – please.
And what about the Commissioner going to the wedding party of the sister of a criminal convicted for drug pushing, just because she married a policeman? The same criminal who was defended in court by the magistrate’s poltiician/lawyer brother?
The drug-pushing convicted criminal belongs to a family run by a godfather who was acquitted of charges in the “halib tal-bott” case in the 1980s.
When the godfather had to relinquish power because of an injury in his head, the family passed onto his eldest son (the drug pusher is the younger son). The new godfather kept on running clandestine lotto in the village square (mostly on Thursdays) and dog- and cock-fights in the “razzett”. Never has a police raid succeeded in catching him anyone red-handed.
The new godfather fleeced a real estate investor whose weaknesses were horse races and debauchery.
There is a sordid circle of shady people, living in what you, Daphne, call a “demimonde” – a term we can here use in the wider sense. The commissioner somehow managed to wiggle himself into the PN’s confidence. The magistrate’s family has retained a tradition of close links with the Labour Party and property dealings.
One wonders why Alfred Sant ousted Sandro Schembri Adami to end up straddled with Herrera.
Avatar: “straddled with Herrera”
Indeed. Was that a Freudian slip? Be careful – you might find yourself shopped to the police by a magistrate.
Straddled WITH not straddled BY. Still, lots of laughs.
Amending the laws to accommodate lewd lyrics in the name of free speech is one thing, ramming bad taste down the public’s throat is another.
True, let’s put a stop to the Valletta carnival, there’s nothing in worse taste than that!
Quick kids, hide your radios. They’re next to go, the second the police learn to read and find a copy of the lyrics to any Britney Spears song.
All the trouble we went through in the eighties, just to end up like this and it will be worse for sure when Labour are in government.
I somehow don’t think that Labour would be so servile to the Curia. It might be worse in other aspects but not on censorship of something as trivial as a carnival song.
[Daphne – The police commissioner is acting independently of the government, as it should be. This, I know for a fact. Despite the calls, in these comments, for the government to put pressure on the commissioner, I completely disagree. That, too, is the thin end of the wedge. It is what led to the ultimate horror of having a government that was inseparable from the police force, as in the 1970s and 1980s – a police force that acted in the government’s interests and to the government’s agenda. No, what should happen here is greater care being taken in the scrutiny of those who are up for public appointment.]
We are on our way to becoming a police state.
Ansi soit il.
And this is where we disagree. The Minister should have made sure that that law is implemented in its proper form, not the form we have today. And he shoud make sure that they don’t drag you to an interrogation at the time convenient to them, that is, Friday evening. That’s when all of us are tired, snappy and prone to saying anything just to get out of there. It’s not as if you stole the Caravaggio at St John, is it now?
No, Daphne, sorry, the Minister has to see that everything is done in a reasonable manner. It’s his call. This has NOTHING to do with independence of the police from the executive.
I totally agree with Daphne on this point. However the police are only upholding laws which are created by politicians, and it is these same politicians who are not only creating crummy laws (such as the one concerning the right to an attorney) but also trying to hold on to outdated laws such as those governing stage censorship. Funny how they both come out of the same ministry.
And speaking of badly made laws and crummy sentencing can someone please explain to me why a couple get sentenced to a combined period of 19 years for trafficking 10kg of cannabis (no small amount, admittedly, but still we’re talking cannabis here) and another man waits 12 years to be jailed for 4 years for committing lewd acts with three young girls (aged 4, 5, and 6). Where’s the sense in all this?
@ Mario Debono: we shouldn’t go from one extreme to the other. Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici should not enter into the nitty gritty of the running of the police force: separation of powers.
Daphne is right: the pillars of a democracy are the legislative, the executive and the administrative (some add the media as another pillar) and these should work independently of each other.
People who are in these institutions should be scrutinised for their integrity and character and their private interests, for example we should know more about how our politicians think, what their real line of business is. We were taken aback when instead of a family-loving dentist we found out that we got a building speculator who is living with another woman, or when we voted for a ‘new face’ without knowing that his main ambition was to have the PM serve his whims, instead of him serving us.
People in high positions first should be grilled and scrutinised before occupying high positions in a democracy.
What shocked many people is that these pillars of democracy – who should stay away from each other – are living a life which is different from what they wanted us to believe. Actually we have their pictures on the internet partying like teenagers and rubbing shoulders. These parties were not like an official New Year’s evening ‘bibita’ where everyone is invited.
We have a good example of how things should be done when we witnessed John Dalli’s grilling by the EU parliament. Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici together with the rest of the cabinet should consider changing untenable positions in the police force, and other high ranking positions which are long overdue to be replaced.
This does not mean that there was any wrongdoing. In Maltese we have fitting proverb:”Min ma’ jbiddilx iqammel”.
Looks like our PM (which is where the buck stops) is much closer ideologically to his uncle than we’d care to admit. The complete refusal to consider the introducation of divorce, despite the evergrowing number of separations. The recent announcement that the State will finance five new Church schools. Our outdated and pathetic censorship policies. Arresting boys for impersonating nuns and now this! Secular country, my a**!
The appointment of a fundamentalist Catholic president.
What’s wrong with that? Aren’t Catholics allowed to hold high office? Or do you want to discriminate against Catholics? Look what’s happening to those who are not practising Catholics. They are just committing scandals one after the other.
Mrs Pullicino Orlando is a fervent Catholic.
NGT: Those boys weren’t arrested by the government. They were arrested by the police. The arrest was not a good idea, but it’s an even worse one to have government lean on the police either way.
Agreed – but the police are still answerable to a higher body and the recent sanctimonious stance they’re adopting seems to be (to me) very much in line with the government’s. The impression I’m getting is that they’re very happy dancing to the organ grinder’s tune.
NGT, let’s be more precise: boys wearing a Jesus Christ costume (thorns and all) with a two-metre penis supported on two bicycle wheels on its front. Now you won’t see that in Venice, Viareggio, Somerset or Rio!
Our police force is not pro-active; one has to push them to enforce the law. If one goes to a police station to file a report the first thing they tell him would be “are you ready to go to court and stand witness on this crime?” If one’s answer is a definite “NO”, they will continue drinking their tea.
I recall a case where some really pro-active inspectors caught someone from Gozo who had Lm30,000 in yearly undeclared interests and was still receiving children’s allowance. Somehow the investigators were fired.
Daphne your comment about the police commissioner is precisely why the government should enact clear laws that make it impossible for him or the rest of the police force to return to the 1970s and 1980s. The latest revelation of the right to consult a lawyer one hour before being interrogated by the police is nothing but a sick joke.
Perhaps the reason why this law has been swept under the carpet for so long is because of the embarrassing content. We are all in favour of an independent police force working within a clear-cut legal framework and clear-cut boundaries.
And it is the government’s responsibility to set up that framework and the boundaries, so that no more Maltese citizens are subjected to the excesses and degradation of the past.
My costume for Nadur 2010 will be a tough choice. I don’t know if I should dress up as Jesus or a magistrate or a police officer or a writer of erotic fiction.
How about dressing up as Judas? If you happen to see Jesus in Nadur, you know what you have to do.
I can see myself at the police station in Nadur: “Le, Sir. Dan jien mhux liebes ta’ Gesù Kristu. Ghalkemm ghandi daqna, robe u Jesus sand- sorry – sandals, jien liebes ta’ Guda.”
“Int trid titkessah, ghax malajr inkesshek jien..”
“Le Sir, haw ara, ghandi borza bi tletin bicca fidda.”
“Trid tikkorrompi ufficjal tal-pulizija! Ghal goc-cella, u ghada ghal quddiem il-Magistrat.”
“Nispera mhux Scerri Herrer–le! ajma! halluni! human ri–! leeeee.
Imbaghad silenzju.
Even if, for argument’s sake, one were to say that they agreed with censorship, isn’t there a board set up for the purpose? How do the police come into it? Being offensive (to whom?) and vulgar is not illegal after all.
When the case is due we’ll be there to support you. God save their souls on that day! Daphne keep us informed about the day of your case, please.
Why do I get a sneaky feeling that there will be a request for the case tol be heard behind closed doors? I hope that any magistrate getting such a (“behind closed doors”) request for the case would deny it. After all, should one wish to protect one’s integrity, then they would like the full facts to be known and published, would they not?
Yes, Daphne has the support of many on this case especially.
Should be hilarious watching police unplugging mics during the Isle of MTV concert.
And should Lady Gaga return, will she be arrested at the airport for having offended our nation’s morality when using an expletive on stage during last year’s concert?
Day after day, Malta is becoming more depressing. Now we have the police vetting the lyrics of rock bands. Is this a new task? What about the unsolved crimes? Whoever came up with this idea should get themselves a life.
The Police Commissioner has been appointed by the PN, and it is the same PN that has been recruiting police officers since 1987. So please, don’t blame the MLP if the police force sucks … for the simple reason that some officers joined the force during a Labour government. If so, they have been further promoted under a PN administration. So who is to blame if the police force sucks? During the last three years God knows how many police officers (graduates) left the force for a better job. I know you’re not going to post my comment.
First it was theatre, then it was an article, now it is song lyrics. I can see what’s next.
– The authorities are going to vet the MTV line-up
– Facebook will be banned in Malta
– All the women in an ghonnella please; we shouldn’t let skin show
What an uptight country. A suffocating cage known as Malta.
How third world of us.
What is “offensive”? Everything can be offensive to someone else, a ham sandwich can be offensive to a Jew or a vegan.
Surely, not everyone thinks like this, this site wouldn’t exist if it were the case.
Regarding the whole dressing up as Jesus, how can that hold up in court? How can anybody prove you dressed up as Jesus, is there a specific dress code. Can’t you just say you dressed up as a Shepherd or anything else. As far as looks go, people mocking Jesus or Osama bin Laden are just one turban apart, or am I missing something? It would be much easier to enforce the “no dressing up as nuns” rule since they have a specific dress code. Ma nafx….
M.Delicata, don’t try to be smart, when in doubt the police will arrest you and they will show your pictures to the magistrate in court. You will be handed down the sentence you deserve according to law.
Just because the laws are archaic it does not follow that the police should not prosecute, and it’s because certain laws are old fashioned that people cannot be prosecuted on what they show and write on the internet.
Shouldn’t the police force be utilising their resources to make our menacing roads safer from drivers talking and texting on their mobiles and drink driving. What a stupid lot!
The Police Commissioner might as well go through some of the world’s most famous songs and issue a censorship list which artists can go through prior to performing. Probably Father David’s songs would be the surviving dodos together with a few others.
Mr Rizzo might have to have his police force listen to records being played backwards to ensure there are no hidden phrases calling out for Satan and blaspheming to the audience’s delight.
Isn’t music an art too? Will Commissioner Rizzo be viewing paintings prior to exhibitions too, in order to ensure the pieces conform to his interpretation of ‘publicly and morally acceptable’? Mr Rizzo will surely not enjoy visiting some of the worlds capital cities hosting some of the world finest art pieces since they may be deemed offensive or vulgar. Then again it’s OK to have a penis-like monument, if one can use the word ‘like’ there, for all tourists to enjoy upon arrrival in Luqa.
Ronan Keating, I assume, will also be asked to give in his lyrics prior to performing on our island in April, otherwise Mr Rizzo will be discriminating between performing artists.
Oh Daphne, you too may be requested to have your column vetted by Mr Rizzo soon, so that everyone will be treated equally and the general public will only be presented with ‘acceptable’ media.
“Probably Father David’s songs would be the surviving dodos together with a few others.”
Jaf jiċċensurawlu l-“hawn tal-pastizzi, sħan u tajbin …” ma tistax tgħid!
He’s not Father David anymore.
The Maltese Taliban, the Maltiban, raises its ugly head once again. One giant leap for the Maltiban, one giant backward step for Malta. So sad.