She's a fine one to talk: Magistrate Herrera takes the moral high ground
The woman who stole a baby's daddy judges the daddy who stole a pushchair.
In The Times, today:
Child’s pushchair stolen in domestic argument
Darrin David Borg was handed a suspended jail term today after he admitted to threatening to use violence against his former partner, slightly injuring her and stealing a child’s pushchair.
In her judgement, Magistrate Consuelo Scerri-Herrera said the Court had noticed that the frequency of such incidents was increasing. She noted that it was the toddler who suffered the most, as he lost his pushchair.
The court condemned the incident and hoped that the accused would not vent his anger on children.
The court also warned the accused not to repeat the incident involving his partner.
The Magistrate also noted that the accused was not able to control himself and in 2009 had taken the law into his hands by replacing the door lock of a block of flats.
The court condemned the accused to a one-year jail term suspended for two years.
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Unbelievable. What’s worse – stealing a toddler’s pushchair or stealing a baby’s daddy?
Magistrate Herrera is so self-deluded that she sits there and publicly chastises a man for making his toddler suffer through loss of a pushchair, when everybody knows she made another toddler suffer through loss of her father.
Better to steal a pushchair than to steal a daddy. True, the one is against the law and the other is not, but there is no doubt which is worse in every sane person’s eyes.
As for “the magistrate also noted that the accused was not able to control himself….(and replaced) the door lock of a block of flats”, why, this leaves me breathless.
This from a woman who has so little self-control that she had a prolonged adulterous affair with a married police inspector, another adulterous affair with the married father of a baby, and behaved like a cat on heat around and in between.
This is why people in her position are not fit to sit in judgement over others. They make a mockery of their role. What must that pushchair thief have been thinking as he stood in the dock – that she’s a jolly fine one to talk, no doubt.
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http://loubondi.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-are-journalists-scared-of-her.html
We’ve been repeating it ad nauseam:
CONSUELO RESIGN.
OR STEP DOWN, IF YOU PREFER.
Daphne, today Lou Bondi on his blog wrote an insightful article that described you so accurately. He reinforced what my family and relatives have known for a long time now.
My favourite line – “That is why they drool over her blog in private but are scared of saying so in public”.
Independent journalists are afraid to be journalists, consequently they write about safe subjects. As far as I am concerned they are hurting themselves and the country.
The MLP would be a far better party if the so-called journalists working for the independent press were not afraid of challenging Joseph Muscat’s chain of bad judgments. There have been many now. He has a track record of bad analytical thinking.
Journalists are even afraid to ask him about the specifics of how he would tackle important issues.
The country desperately needs a strong Opposition with leaders who can think.
The MLP would field much better candidates and certainly a mature leader if the independent (as in ‘don’t work for the political parties’) journalists do their job.
Wake up, journalists.
Daphne you have spunk.
In a very small country like Malta, the repercussions of anyone discussing delicate topics, like the judiciary, the police, are very serious. It is like committing suicide. Malta is far to small to have a free open press and journalists with guts.
Please, take my daddy but not my buggy!
Poor guy, he doesn’t read your blog. Had he tucked the pushchair into a picnic cooler he would have been let off.
As anticipated, we have to wait until such time when the honourable magistrate is in a position to wield more power, then a Herodias would be asking for a head.
Sure she should have let him of the hook and then when we hear in the news of some fatal stabbing of shooting you’ll be the first to come here and blame our lenient system for the death of a woman.And this guy got a suspended sentence which is practically nothing.
[Daphne – That isn’t the point, AlistOR and you should know that.]
You know, when I read comments like yours, Alistor, I’m reminded why people like Magistrate Herrera are able to get away with so much for so long.
Those who sit in judgement over others need to be beyond reproach. In judging the theft of a pushchair to be seriously damaging to a child, the Magistrate has morally condemned herself.
Now, do you see why she’s the problem here?
@ La Redoubte
Don’t waste time and breath on the likes of him. The guy doesn’t even know how to spell his own name, but then again it could be that he is spelling it in a more liberal and progressive way.
Not really no.
Her job is to decide what is and what isn’t infringement of the law.
And if it is an infringement what punishment it deserves.
By your logic only Jesus Christ is fit to be a judge.
Actually no because if a case of someone who threw a tantrum in a market ever comes before him he must let it slide otherwise he would condemn himself.
So what if she isn’t a nice person in her personal life? Has she broken the law? What exactly has she gotten away with for so long?
Look at this particular case of a stolen pushchair? I thought the sentence was quite just.
[Daphne – Why do lawyers who get jail time (even suspended) lose their warrant? Why are Noel Arrigo and Patrick Vella no longer judges?]
I am curious as to how she made it to magistrate in the first place.
[Daphne – One of the few things the Labour Party did during its 22-month stint in government.]
Bribery.
What law did she break? Adultery?
[Daphne – How literal you are. They were not forced to resign because they broke the law, but because, by breaking the law, they no longer have moral authority.]
Alistor Farrugia, if the laws of Malta were the sole criterion on which fitness for office were to be judged, then there would be need for a code of ethics which, incidentally, the ‘lady’ in questions has violated repeatedly.
Moral authority in a magistrate is far more important than a detailed knowledge of the law. Were that not the case, a few well programmed computers would render the judiciary redundant.
I believe that lawyers and notaries lose their warrant only if sentenced to jail for more then one year, suspended sentence or not.
The point, dear Alistor, is that someone sitting in judgment should be above all reprimand.
“As sober as a judge” means a lot…
I am not saying Magistrate Herrera is a drunkard; yet, is her lifestyle sober?
Well she is there to pass judgement…But I guess the point of this piece wasn’t to discuss the sentence, but more a sensationalist piece and gossip about the judge’s personal life.
Wasn’t the magistrate delivering judgement on something that went on in the private life of the couple in question?
Only Joseph Muscat would buy your argument. But then he pays visits to the magistrate at her own home late at night.
What’s on posted on Facebook is no longer personal.
Consuelo Herrera sits in judgement over others, but she’s a magistrate, not a judge.
It is precisely because she sits in judgement over others that her personal life is relevant.
No one would bat an eye at the thought of her sleeping with her own husband. When she sleeps with someone else’s, that raises all sorts of questions about her fitness for office.
@ Mario
She is not a judge but a magistrate – the promotion will come into effect when her brother is Justice Minister.
People and society in general expect magistrates and judges to be beyond reproach in their professional AND private lives.
As for the ‘gossip’ you refer to, it is so gossipy that it is supposedly being investigated by at least three commissions/institutions.
But that’s the whole point, can’t you see? She cannot pass judgement over others when her private life is in such a mess.
How can she pass a judgement when her actions are so much worse than those of the person being judged.
Doesn’t it bother you at all?
I bet that had it been someone connected to the other political party, you’d be clamouring for their resignation and calling it gross political arrogance and abuse of power. You’re only condoning it because of who she is.
Tough titty – a magistrate’s personal life has to be above reproach.
Mario, minn irid jiskongra jrid ikun pur. Consuleo Herrera qed taghmel travestija mil-qorti billi tibqa iggranfata hemm. Kieku kella biss farka decenza jmissa ila li warbet.
Il-kaz msemmi juri bic-car kif is-sitwazzjoni taghha mhiex tenabbli.
Il-fatt li Consuelo Herrera baqghat fil-post huwa ta’ misthija fir-rigward tal-Parlament. Il-Ministru tal-Gustizzja nahseb li ghandhu bizzejjed materjal biex iressaq mozzjoni biex hi titnehha mil-kariga taghha, anke jekk l-Oppozzijoni tivvota kontra.
Ghall-anqas il-poplu jsir jaf kull membru parlamentari xi jsarraf fuq dan ir-rigward.
Yes well, can anyone say, “Duh!!”. That’s just it; with her responsibilities, she shouldn’t be putting herself in that position. Again, another person who doesn’t get the point.
Pass judgement…Even bigger “My a@@e”.
In my industry we have a rule of “fit for purpose” – I rest my case, m’lud.
Hello Pot, do you know Kettle?
Your posts about the magistrate really crack me up. You really don’t like her do you? I fully understand where you are coming from. It still makes me laugh, though. I guess it’s better than crying!
Talk about moral high ground, I have been arguing with a racist about the Africans given suspended sentence for selling fake items. The police who stole petrol got a conditional discharge for pleading guilty yet the Africans got prison suspended.
How is that not racist?
The comment by the magistrate doesn’t even make any sense at all. Are we to believe that a toddler deprived of his or her pushchair actually suffers more than a violently assaulted woman?
Thick skin! Pity those who have to suffer appearance in front of this magistrate. A real dishonour to our legal system
…U issa nitolbu biex bl-intercessjoni tal-Madonna ta’ Lourdes u ta’ Kristu tas-Salib tal-Gholja, il-Magistrat Herrera tiddeciedi minn jedda li tirrizenja…
I am not sure I can understand the point you’re making here. Is a “moral” lesson weakened because the teacher is not perfect?
[Daphne – Yes, Reuben, obviously it is, and as a parent (for starters) you should know that. Your child isn’t going to take a ‘don’t take drugs’ lecture from you if you’re sitting there smoking a spliff while delivering it. And Jesus Christ’s rage at the traders in the temple wouldn’t have been half as effective had he got a little racketeering business on the side.]
Jesus himself – I know, but sometimes you can’t help not bringing him up, he is the greatest ethicist of all time, after all – told people to do as the priests told them but not as they did. Their lifestyles did not diminish the efficacy of the message they were transmitting.
[Daphne – Qbadta minn sieqa, Reuben. The priests were there already and he couldn’t do anything about them, hence his words which are actually an admonition to the priests. He himself led by example.]
If your “contention” were correct, testimonials by ex junkies and ex gamblers about the perils of either would be counter productive.
[Daphne – The clue is in the ‘ex’, Reuben. The only way a current junkie can give a lecture to kids is if he takes the ‘don’t do as I did unless you want to end up in this mess’ tack.]
The occurrence of such an apparent contradiction should illustrate the validity of that which is objectively and absolutely just. A person who appears to violate the most basic rules of “fairness” is right in sayiing that stealing a pram is wrong, even though the “wrongness” in her actions may appear greater by an order of magnitude.
I don’t know if I am making myself clear.
Clear or not, that’s all besides the point. Do you or do you not see that an untrustworthy magistrate weakens the whole of the justice system?
Answers on a pinhead, please.
You have to bear in mnd that she is not judging by her own standards. She is applying a set of rules that transcend personal preferences. It’s those pesky absolutes again.
We’re not commenting on the judgement and the sentence. We’re commenting on her moralistic remark about “the toddler suffering the most”. That had nothing to do with judgement by the standards of the law. It was a personal admonition.
Daphne, l-argument tieghek jagmel hafna sens u ma nistax ma naqbilx mieghu. Imma naccertak li l-gazzetti ma gabux kollox fuq dal-kas. L-isptar trid tkun tahdem biex tara b’ghajnejk.