And this one
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2010/09/23/perjury/

The Paladin of the South.

This happened when, at the same time, she was presiding court cases in which Dr. Carmelo Galea was a party.

Just four weeks after she signed the ‘konvenju’ with Dr. Gales to purchase the Msida property, she issued a court decree (in July 2005) in which she accepted Dr. Carmelo Galea’s request to sell a million pound property in Xaghra Gozo (part of bequest of which Dr. Galea was a testamentary executor) to his business partner (vide Gozowide Properties Ltd – C5931) in preference to all the other parties interested in the same property without issuing a call for tender.

This information could be easily verified and should not take years for the Commission of the Administration of Justice to investigate and decide on the matter!

From The Times:

“Dr Bugeja said it was clear that Mr Bezzina was instrumental in the whole operation and had also made arrangements for a PO Box. He had paid a Lm3,000 (€6,988) to Simon Xuereb, whose PO box was used for the purpose.”

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20101004/local/man-to-face-trial-for-importing-cocaine-through-the-mail

Simon Xuereb is the brother of Noel Xuereb, sons of Lippu l-Boxer (Philip Xuereb).

Simon has been found guilty of drug trafficking and association for the same purpose, and handed down a nine-year jail sentence.

Jose’ Herrera was his lawyer in the Court of First Instance. The case then went to a PN backbencher in the appellate stage. Herrera and this PN backbencher are very good friends.

[Daphne – Please give the name of the PN backbencher. It’s only fair.]
Noel Xuereb had been the chauffeur of a Labour Minister between 1996 and 1998. In February 1997, In-Nazzjon reported that he was caught managing clasdestine lotto in a football club and the Minister had to sack him.

Investigative journalists (if there are any in this country) might wish to investigate the connections between the Xuereb and the Herrera family. Realty deals concluded together at the expense of others; shady contracts; gray-area business… Beginning from the time of Judge Herrera down to our own days… There’s a whole underworld to be discovered. You don’t need to be Mario Puzo to investigate and write about this world in which members of the Judiciary, members of Parliament, and Little Dons join forces to make money.

http://inforrm.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/law-and-media-round-up-4-october-2010/

Daphne, you have not exposed this woman to public ridicule. She has managed to do so very well on her own. She did have a reputation, after all. Not finding your accusations of her sleeping with policemen as defamatory only drives the fact home all the more.

In other words, Daphne said that Dr Scerri Herrera’s backside is not beautiful, because it looks like a bus.

Is Dr Scerri Herrera arguing that being a Magistrate has beautified her? She is ugly. Her backside is ugly.

Daphne said as much, and to drive her point home, she compared that ugly backside to an ugly inanimate object.

Where is the ridicule?

I think there is a lot of haughtiness here! Dr Scerri Herrera does not tolerate being called “ugly” because she is a Magistrate!

One would expect she was appointed Magistrate for her brains, not for her looks.

(The friendship with George Abela might induce one to think otherwise.)

This reasoning is not correct. I can say that in my opinion David Buttigieg is an idiot (in the medical sense of the word).

David Buttigieg would be fully entitled to sue me for damages. Needless to say, if I can prove that he is really an idiot (in the medical sense of the word), I might be exonerated thanks to the proof of truth.

But if I compare David Buttigieg to a macaque (http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/images/0416macaque_lone.jpg) my opinion may be tantamount to defamation, and having the right to hold and express an opinion does not mean that my opinion can be offensive to others by exposing them to public ridicule.

This is a question of aesthetic judgment.

So, in this case the presiding magistrate will have to decide whether an expression of aesthetic judgment is tantamount to exposition to public ridicule.

In other words:

1. the case instituted by Dr Scerri Herrera is not about the truthfulness of whether her backside is similar to a bus. That is an aesthetic opinion which cannot be proven – because it can be neither true nor false (beauty is in the eye of the beholder);

2. the case instituted by Dr Scerri Herrera is, inter alia, whether comparing her backside to a bus amounts to exposition to ridicule.

In my opinion, it does not.

Had Daphne, or anybody else for that matter, compared Dr Scerri Herrera’s backside to the posterior of an elephant, a whale, a rhino, a buffalo, a mastodont, then maybe there might have been an exposition to ridicule, as she would have been compared to an animal.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1294/1247824021_98566c1886_o.jpg

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/101102/101102,1190220904,4/stock-photo-the-backside-of-a-large-cape-buffalo-5488840.jpg

http://africafreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Rhino-bum-1.jpg

But comparing the magisterial backside to a bus, is absolutely not an exposition to ridicule, because a bus – unlike the animals abovementioned – is a neutral, inanimate object. That would be an inverse pathetic fallacy, and – as all pathetic fallacies – a question of empathy, not a pejorative comparison.

http://www.eportreviews.com/Europe/Malta/Vsalletta-Bus2.jpg

I think Dr Scerri Herrera miscalculated terribly and has absolutely no knowledge of literary mechanisms.

That is exactly what I am saying!

Chief Justice Camilleri was very explicity conducting an interinstitutional dialogue between the judiciary and the other two organs of state.

The constitutional significance of this dialogue is beyond doubt.

By constitutional, I mean real politics, not inter-party bickering – the kind of discourse one expects in a mature democracy.

The removal of Dr Scerri Herrera as magistrate would be a real demonstration of the maturity of constitutional democracy in our country.

“Whereas the three organs of state are (or should in theory be) separate and distinct, this does not mean that they are incommunicado: there is constant dialogue between them.”

They already do! They meet at parties for charity – we saw the photos on Facebook, didn’t we? At these parties for charity even high profile journalists, who are sometimes considered to be the fourth organ of a democratic society, are invited.