Chris Said
Chris Said
Justice is turned on its head when it allows those who seek vengeance to wreck or damage another person’s career, or to persecute them through the system.
We have seen far too many of these cases over the last couple of years, and it is as though a pattern is emerging, however unintentional this might be.
Chris Said, whose current problems stem from the time when he acted as legal counsel to a woman in her marital battles, enraging her spouse, is the latest high-profile victim of an estranged husband who is determined to get his own back.
He can thank his lucky stars that, unlike poor Michael Grech, he wasn’t shot dead in the stairwell of his home by the estranged husband of one of his clients.
Then they say that hell has no fury like a woman scorned.
As for the Labour Party, it astounds me. Its news website, Maltastar, is currently running a top story telling its readers that Chris Said has resigned because he faces criminal charges for perjury. That’s it – no details, lest people feel, as I do, that he is being unjustly persecuted.
If timesofmalta.com has all the details, then I’m assuming that Maltastar’s reporters, however inept, have them too.
Do they seriously believe that if they don’t write them into the story, nobody will read them on timesofmalta.com, or in the newspapers tomorrow?
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Well put.
Maltastar has come to the conclusion that there is no purpose in their reporting the details, as no one will believe them anyway.
Why report details when sound bites taken out of context do the job better?
Hope to see you back soon.
The problem is that many persons’ reputations are being tarnished while libel cases crawl through the courts over many years, or even worse, when the slander is anonymous on the internet or when it is the result of organised whispering campaigns, and tracing the culprit to take legal action is difficult if not impossible.
As the situation stands, one can blemish another person’s reputation with impunity to gain important goals like winning an election or destroying their credibility, because it will take years for any libel case to be concluded, if ever. In my view this is disgraceful.
“If timesofmalta.com has all the details, then I’m assuming that Maltastar’s reporters, however inept, have them too.”
A half truth is almost invariably worse then a lie. The word that best describes these so-called reporters is skifuzi.
Jaqq, x’nies!
Pity.
Perjury, eh? Will MaltasRats gloat over the prosecution of the magistrate who lied when testifying in court?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100923/local/parliamentary-secretary-resigns-as-court-orders-perjury-proceedings
I just cannot believe that Chris Said is facing this hell because he made a simple mistake when testifying in court: saying that temporary custody was granted in the evening when it was granted in the afternoon.
What is happening in this country? It is the reign of madness. It is not so much a case of nobody being above the law, but of nobody being safe from totalitarian craziness.
The way I look at it, if even Chris Said, a member of government, is not safe from arbitrary injustice, then what hope is there for the common man?
I cannot understand why Judge Mallia overturned the decision of so many others before him. Surely he must know that for a crime to be committed, there must be intent – and that includes perjury.
Perjury is telling lies deliberately under oath to deviate the course of justice. It is not making a mistake about whether temporary justice was granted in the afternoon or the evening because your memory isn’t 100% clear and you don’t have any notes because you gave up the case and, as is correct procedure, handed the file to the lawyer who took it over.
This is horrific. It puts me in mind of the show trials of the Chinese Red Guard – or Dom Mintoff.
I am really sorry that Chris Said had to resign on such an issue. He is a really had working politician, and his dedication will be missed.
Recently, we called for his assistance in Zurrieq (it is not his constituency) and he called personally on site, took note of our concerns and acted upon them.
Others took us for a ride, including our councillors and constituency MPs.
I wish him good luck, and await to see him back serving the country.
Asked who had represented Mr Xuereb, Dr Said said he was represented by Dr Justyne Caruana
Asked if the fact that Dr Caruana was a Labour MP had had a bearing in the actions taken by Mr Xuereb, Dr Said said he would let the people decide.
Giovanni, here is my decision.
Yes…
I said No.
In view of the fact that Chris Said resigned because he stated on oath that a court decree was issued “in the evening” instead “in the afternoon”, I am now eagerly waiting for the Police to institute proceedings against Magistrate Scerri Herrera for stating on oath that she had met Michael Cassar when this was not the case.
and for Magistrate Scerri Herrera to do the honorable thing and resign.
Not if there is a Labour government with Joseph Muscat as Prime Minister, Jose Herrera as Minister for Justice and Home Affairs and Robert Musumeci as Chairman and CEO of MEPA.
[Daphne – Well, we’ll have to wrap it up in the next two years, then, won’t we – before her brother becomes minister for justice and frightens the attorney-general into not taking action against her. Scratch this country’s surface, and it’s still exactly where it was before 1987.]
26 years of stagnation. Unbelievable. It reminds me of the ‘Wooly Mammoth’ episode on Discovery, when they defrosted it. Baqa ezatt kif kien.
hear hear Maria … my thoughts exactly
But is anybody still hoping that Labour will ever change? Their culture is too deep.
Is this vengeance from Mrs Caruana regarding Dr Said considering his statement when she voted wrongly in parliament ?
Elementary!
I had to read this twice to believe it.
I have read it more than twice, but I still do not even understand it.
Do they seriously believe that if they don’t write them into the story, nobody will read them on timesofmalta.com, or in the newspapers tomorrow?
YES…that is the essence of socialism. Stupid, you may think – pretty much so and similar in reasoning to those who think that social media networks are private albums.
This is a plain-for-all-to-see case of a totally irrelevant and idiotic technicality that has been used for political purposes and personal vendetta.
Having just read the times.com update, Chris Said should not get so emotional over this matter. It will obviously blow over and be thrown out of the courts as yet another time-wasting file.
Understandably hard as it may be for him, Dr. Said should not ‘ipaxxijhom’.
Daphne: ‘Scratch this country’s surface, and it’s still exactly where it was before 1987.’
So absolutely true it makes me physically sick. And I used to think that a generation of civilisation would offer some sort of a cure. It is a mark of how downright rotten to the core ‘Lejburisti’ are that it hasn’t.
God help us.
hello Daphne, what happened to the magistrate Consuelo Herrera case? I think it has been postphoned twice already.If it was somebody else the court will sent a marishal to take you to the next hearing. Am I right.?
[Daphne -What makes you think the case was postponed because of me? I’m not the one who has an interest in postponing it. ]
Perhaps they are waiting for 2013.
“Scratch this country’s surface, and it’s still exactly where it was before 1987” …this is probably the most frightening comment you’ve ever put on here Daphne. And it rings oh so true….
That is quite a depressing statement, but it is true.
Did they actually include the details on the news on Super One? Because if not, then I guess a good majority of the population only heard/read the abridged version.
You’re assuming they can read (and understand) English and that they can concentrate on reading more than 2 sentences!
Some people are skillful at using the criminal justice system to quench their vindictiveness. It’s not easy. First, you need to be obsessed – in a way that leaves one nothing better to do than to ruminate incessantly and pursue the case with determination.
On a different level, there was a time, during the height of the war-on-drugs moral panic of the late 80s/early 90s, when all you needed to do is scribble an anonymous letter to the police accusing your would-be victim of drug trafficking. The more imaginative the story, the thicker the file and the quicker the police raid, especially if subject is somehow known to their records, even by reason of association.
you should know …. you were one of them.
“Some people are skillful at using the criminal justice system to quench their vindictiveness.”
You certainly don’t mean a certain magistrate who entertained a fair number of your former colleagues, do you?
On a related note, what or, rather, who is out to be vindicated in this particular case? Please don’t say it’s the father who feels he was wronged. That would be too easy.
Just wondering: at what time does ‘evening’ start?
So this has been brewing since 2007! It’s quite a long time to bring this up now, so what seemed trivial at that time is not so trivial now. Some progress we made in our courts! And the same old tactics emerge over and over again from the MLP. Who will they fool?
Very well said, Daphne. When I read the details of the case on http://www.timesofmalta.com, I couldn’t believe it!
Mixing up “afternoon” and “evening” seems to be so obviously a mistake (as opposed to a blatant lie), and seems to have had no bearing at all in the outcome of the custody case in question. I still can’t understand how this poor man could have been charged with perjury over such a triviality.
For the record – I think that Joe Grima has shown decency in his remark about Chris. May I add that the judge should feel ashamed. Not even a beginner would have thought of “perjury” – evening and afternoon do not change the court’s decision – as said before I am convinced that even judges are keeping 2013 in mind and to hell with good judgements.
[Daphne – I honestly don’t think the judge had any untoward motives. I think he was being too literal and legalistic in his interpretation of the law, thus missing its spirit entirely. For all we know, it’s possible he’s feeling extremely embarrassed today, in that way we sometimes do when we realise too late that we’ve made a ‘froga’.]
Even judges sometimes make fools of themselves.
For you Chris Said is a Saint like JPO..Enjoy these people then. That’s why Malta is in this poor state. Not certainly for PL. For Daphne and Co it seems that all problems derive from PL but it is indeed the PN in government. Malta has never been so corrupted.
[Daphne – Malta has never been so corrupted. Can you hear the sound of wild laughter, Johan? That’s all of us who were around in the 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps you should read Carmen Sammut’s EXCELLENT opinion piece about Mintoff – Malta Today on line. That’s what I mean when I said that people who are intelligent and don’t have chips on their shoulder found themselves unable to persist in support for that regime despite having been raised as Mintoffjani.]