Here’s a good cause for Franco Debono
Now he's trying to keep Scarface out of prison
If Franco Debono wants to fight for reform in the justice and parliamentary systems, then he should start with this.
Whatever arguments are made about the right of members of parliament to practise their profession, about the right of people to choose their defence lawyer, it just doesn’t seem right for all manner of reasons to have Anglu Farrugia, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, the future deputy prime minister and minister for the police, defending criminals like Mario Vella and trying to get him the best deal possible, which is why his client has given him the brief and paid him.
Anglu Farrugia, in his position, arguing the defence for a cocaine-addled man who was involved in a crazed shoot-out with the police, after his colleague said that he wants to die like Al Pacino’s character in the 1980s film about a Cuban cocaine trafficker?
I don’t think so.
This kind of thing has been a plague on our House for decades, conspicuously affecting both sides. We really cannot have it any longer.
I can’t see a way out, because I don’t know how you can have a ban on criminal lawyers holding a seat in parliament or a position in the cabinet. Strictly speaking, they should be the ones to draw the line, but this is a cultural and mental outpost of Sicily, so that’s too much to ask and the line has to be imposed.
Really, it’s intolerable and a way to end it has to be found.
But I don’t see Franco Debono busting his ass about it any time soon. After all, he’s a criminal lawyer too. And look at his track record: like all our other legislators who are also criminal lawyers, he first makes the laws and then goes to the assistance of people who break them.
What is this – the Italian influence?
From the report in The Times today: “Lawyer Anġlu Farrugia formed part of the defence team.”
What is this – so now even our newspapers are aiding and abetting these people in their ridiculous quest to persuade us that they are different people, e.g. Anglu Farrugia the lawyer and Anglu Farrugia the deputy leader of the Labour Party?
That line should have read, and anywhere else it would have been a headline: “The Labour Party’s deputy leader, Anglu Farrugia, served as defence lawyer.”
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111203/local/Judge-jails-shoot-out-accomplice.396569
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111203/local/Charged-over-stolen-prostitute-s-client-wallet.396571
Was the name of the client Char…..?
My thoughts exactly. Another one, who happens to be a Labour veteran but that’s not what’s relevant, is Joe Brincat.
He is the learned one who has been vehemently defending that scum Max Ciantar, trying to pick up on petty technicalities of the case, and get him ‘the best deal’. At his age, Dr. Brincat should have taken up gardening by now, instead of getting very publicly involved with such rubbish.
If democracy needs justice and police to be under different ministers, than how can lawmakers defend criminals in court in front of magistrates who depend a lot on the MP/Lawyers in front of them?
My solution is Gonzi’s solution for his ministers : turn ALL MPs from part time to full time, and they have to renounce from their profession for that period of time they are elected.
[Daphne – It’s not enough of a solution, because they return to criminal law when their time in parliament/cabinet is up and so have to maintain their contacts and even their law offices.]
We shouldn’t see a future minister for MEPA like for example Charles Buhagiar appealing for his clients in front of the MEPA board of appeals.
We cannot have MP/doctors issuing dubious medical certificates for their clients – read constituents.
We shouldn’t have TV presenters doing their job while being members of parliament.
Priests are prohibited from being members of parliament by the Catholic Church and it proved to be a good decision in the right direction by the right entity.
“It’s not enough of a solution” agreed, not enough but it would be a great leap forward with some more brain storming from people of goodwill.
No conflict of interest is ever hotly protested in parliament when lawyers draft and pass laws, supposedly to prevent crime and to punish law-breakers, when the same persons, this time wearing the hat of a defence counsel, defend persons accused of breaking those same laws and invoking in-built weaknesses of the law so as to escape punishment altogether or to obtain early release.
It is analogous to having regulators working as operators, which is prohibited by EU law.
The only way to do it is to have a fulltime parliament with fulltime MPs who cannot hold on to their previous job – like in other more developed countries.
Those who don’t like it can do everyone a favour and not stand for election..but we will never get there since lawyers want their cake and to eat it: a part-time parliament in Valletta, with court sessions in the morning, seeing clients (a.k.a. voters) in the afternoon, and popping in to parliament in the evening. The PN started out as a lawyers’ party, and now the PL is (or has) caught up.
[Daphne – Ah, but the Labour Party is already hoist by its own petard here. It can hardly agree to a full-time salary for MPs when it went nuts about the full-time salary for cabinet ministers.]
The Labour Party does not want any changes to anything: electoral law, party financing, parliament etc. The status quo suits it well at the moment. Since when does anyone really discuss reforms in this country? Politics is only about ‘il-prezz tal-gass’.
The way I see it, is that lawyers, architects and medical doctors, including dentists find the electoral system perfectly suited to their profession. Politics becomes a way of finding clients, which makes them dependent on the system itself in the long run.
Franco Debono is the quintessential example, unable to distinguish between localised issues, his career and the nature of parliament.
I really don’t agree with his proposal to introduce the third stage of judgement, it caused waiting times in Italy to stretch up to twenty years for a sentence to be handed down indefinitely. It won’t help those he assists, epsecially if they’re innocent. The system there is more concerned with itself, overloaded with checks and balances than people’s rights.
You already referred to fulltime not solving things…well it will go a long way in doing so. Anyway nothing is 100% foolproof.
This calls for Baxxter’s Proposta Nru. 3 ghal Malta Ahjar:
3. Ban lawyers from politics.
How about dentists?
No. The MPs you have in mind did not become godawful puppaturi because they were dentists.
After all, dentists are down there with mechanics and air conditioning repairmen in the Maltese scale of deference.
But lawyers! All “dottore” and “syoots” and oaths and sena prattika and buscades and triple degrees to hide their intellectual inadequacy and other assorted bullshit.
They fucked Malta in the 20th century, and they look set to pursue the fine tradition.
Hey Baxxter,
I don’t think that Dentist Doctor A. Charles appreciated your slotting him in with AC technicians and grease monkeys.
Another one who can’t read?
I said the exact opposite, and was lamenting another shard of Maltese idiocy, viz. Alex ‘Open Heart’ Felice is god on earth but your dentist is just someone in white overalls. Someone needs to tell our cretinous population that you can die of an abscess. Perhaps Anthony Charles himself could do it.
As a dentist I agree with Mr Baxxter. One must read the whole comment to understand that no insult to dentists in general was made.
@ H. P. Baxxter
Why do you want Anthony Charles to die of an abscess?
I agree . Can anybody tell us how full our parliament would be if Baxxters 3rd law were to be put in place now . One last thought – no journalists .
Dentists pull out teeth, fill cavities etc. The do not appear in law courts to defend criminals who broke the very same laws enacted by them when moonlighting as lawgivers.
Dear Doctor, what a blighted view you have of dentists; as a retort we can say that doctors prescribe antibiotics, remove warts, poke their fingers into posterior orifices and get a cut from any referral to consultants but we will not say it as we still have some faith in most medics.
Pulling out teeth should be the last thing a dentist should contemplate, yet you mentioned it first.
@ A Charles.
You do not even understand my comment because, if you read it carefully, it is not at all a “blighted view” of dentists at all.
Neither doctors nor dentists have a conflict of interest in the exercise of their profession and sitting in parliament to pass laws.
The conflict arises with criminal defence lawyers who have a pecuniary interest that the enacted laws would contain loopholes that enable their clients to avoid being found guilty of crimes they had really committed.
Dear Doctor, I understand any comment by Mr. Baxxter and I always like them but you tend to take offence when some village dentist rebuts your animosity towards the profession. Fine della dicussione.
Dr Saliba,the conflict of interest is wider than you think.
One can go to an architect MP to get an undeserved permit, to a doctor MP for an invalidity certificate, to an accountant MP to have his business accounts cooked with the hope that he’s an untouchable.
One can go to a dentist and he will give him a ‘discount’ for a root canal treatment with the promise that he’ll take care of him in the coming election.
Dr Pawlu Boffa was genuinely the ‘tabib tax-xelin’, but we have to say that this helped him immensely to garner a lot of votes.
@ John Schembri.
None of the cases mentioned by you involve a conflict of interest – they are cases of abuses that should not happen.
The case of lawyer/lawgivers is different. When wearing the lawgiver hat they pass laws to prevent crime and to punish wrongdoers. When they wear the hat of a criminal defence lawyer they help lawbreakers to escape the rigours of the law drafted earlier by them.
. Do I need to spoon feed you to understand a simple comment?
The clients/customers of lawyers are CRIMINALS. The clients/customers/patients of accountants, dentists, doctors etc are not criminal and there is less conflict of interest.
One cannot compare lawyers with other professionals in this case.
All the abuses I mentioned above should not happen yet they do every day.
So to MINIMISE abuse we should have ALL MPs fully paid to do an MP job only.They have to renounce their job while they are serving as MPs.
Daphne, you should get a life! seriously ! you wrote a whole article on a guy’s surname?? mandekx xtamel jew?!!!