Franco Debono is the wrong chairman for that committee
Franco Debono has demonstrated amply that he does not understand why freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, or why politicians should be subjected to scrutiny, criticism and mockery, as befits the circumstances.
This is a man who actually thinks that the prime minister should “condemn” from his Chinese Cultural Revolution pulpit anyone who writes anything to which Franco Debono objects. Debono has sulked for five months and is sulking still because the prime minister did not do so.
He can’t understand why the prime minister didn’t, or why the prime minister shouldn’t (note to Franco Debono: this isn’t China).
Franco Debono doesn’t understand what the free press in the free West is all about, and yet he presumes to sit as chairman of the parliamentary select committee for the reform of press laws.
Of course, he was asked to chair it as yet another attempt to stop him making a scene in the supermarket aisle and throwing things out of the trolley.
The committee wasn’t thought to be important enough to worry about – how much damage could Debono do with press laws? – but now we know better.
The only person more unsuitable for the role would have been Mao Tse Tung himself.
But read Stephen Calleja’s piece below, which was published in The Malta Independent on Sunday, today.
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By Stephen Calleja
Last Monday, Nationalist MP Franco Debono used up some of his time during the parliamentary debate on the vote of confidence called by the Prime Minister to lash out at me on a personal level.
I choose not to reply to his allegations except to say that they were serious, dishonest and spiteful.
What I choose to say is this: less than 24 hours later, I received an email from the secretary of Parliament’s Select Committee for the Recodification and the Consolidation of Laws, which is headed by none other than Dr Debono himself.
Through the email, Dr Debono “kindly” invited me to take part in a meeting to discuss the “consolidation of press laws”, which was to take place on Wednesday.
By consolidation of press laws, what Dr Debono means is the harshening of penalties in the libel laws as well as the extension of such laws to cover the internet and most of all bloggers, two of Dr Debono’s crusades in the last few years.
What cheek.
On Monday, he used his parliamentary privilege to hit out at me, not on a professional level, but on a personal one, and then the next day he asks for my opinion on how he would like to see libel laws strengthened.
Isn’t it incredible?
On the one hand, he is safe in the knowledge that what he – and all other MPs – says in Parliament cannot be challenged in a court of law, but then he wants me to share my views on how he should go about proposing changes to the law to increase fines for libel, or perhaps to send journalists to prison as well.
He wants to retain his right to say what he likes in Parliament while at the same time work to tighten libel laws to curtail the freedom of expression of others.
He wants to be able to openly attack non-politicians in the House but then he wants to consolidate his position to threaten journalists with libel, as he has done with me (and I presume others) on several occasions, each time they write something about him.
Is this the democracy in which Franco Debono believes?
What should be debated is not libel laws, but the way MPs should be prevented from abusing their parliamentary privilege to say whatever they like about anyone they like, especially when what they say is not in the national interest or in the public domain.
By the way, I did not go to the meeting.
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Be sure to read this one, too:
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=145757
Some interesting musing here
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120610/opinion/Knifing-Carm-with-cynicism.423605
Who is Franco Debono?
Did the email to Stephen Calleja start with “Bir-rispett kollu lejn l-Editur tal-Malta Independent, li ghandi rispett kbir lejh” by any chance?
As a politician, Franco Debono should show more sense of maturity. If he shows some self-respect, the media will not bother him anymore.
Those who saw Dr Debono on Xarabank last Friday would have thought that to the majority of fellow PN parliamantarians he is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
There they were all around him. He was flanked by the party whip by the way, and his every utterance was greeted as if it were oracular.
Maybe they agree with him. Frankly it certainly looked as if they did.
Like the late Diana Spencer, Franco Debono LOVES HATES the media and it would kill him were the media to ignore him as long as they only write NICE things about him.
Well, he does seem to have a way of attracting attention.
´´What should be debated is not libel laws, but the way MPs should be prevented from abusing their parliamentary privilege to say whatever they like about anyone they like, especially when what they say is not in the national interest or in the public domain´´ –
You are just so correct, Mr. Calleja – the ´abuse´ of this parliamentary privilege should indeed be rectified – only then can MPs be held responsible for what they say.
This should keep him busy http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2012/06/10/how-to-stop-magazine-theft/gallery/image/image-188/
Stephen Calleja’s article outlines exactly where Franco Debono’s novelty should be challenged; the content of his ideas.
Franco’s idea of democracy is to create a suprematic parliament which would be watchdog, exclusive space and a place where privilege leads to whoever is member to forget the electoral mandate.
The same applies to party financing; over regulation leading to abuse instead of transparency with an untested capping system, as do his proposals for a justice system designed for its operators, lawyers, which would result unworkable and wasteful of resources. The resources being the extended time spent and subsequent negative effect on foreign direct investment.
Debono thinks written law compensates for cultural traits, in reality it perpetuates the myth of the ‘onorevoli’ alienating everyone else. Where lust for power, if within legal parameters, is justified. Politics as high art, just for its own sake.
His idea of how the press and the internet should be domesticated, is just the symptom. He thinks democracy and its exercise should have an own official channel, problem is, that medium is a one way system, outdated. It will only create a collusive system where parties would exclude anyone else.
He needs to catch up, an overdose of career politicians on TV has led to blogging as an alternative.
Franco Debono cannot understand how a morally sound prime minister like Lawrence Gonzi cannot and will not “condemn” somebody who writes something to which Franco objects.
What I don’t understand is how Franco Debono was a top student.
[Daphne – He was a ‘learning by rote’ top student. That sort fails miserably when it comes to anything that requires real intelligence.]
FD: “Musn’t forget the smart-ass cartoonists. If they don’t behave, we must haf ways.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120611/cartoons/Cartoon-of-the-day.423745
Franco Debono should state very clearly if there were any deals with Joseph Muscat or any one in his party about laws and votes in Parliament.
On this specific matter of the media and blogs, did he, or did he not, enter into any agreement with Joseph Muscat or anyone in his party so that Joseph gives Franco the head of Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, while Franco gives Joseph and his party the head of anyone in the media or on the blogs?
The media and the blogs have a right and a duty to ask questions.
I followed the prime minister’s speech and that of the opposition leader. They talked about everything except the elephant in the room: Franco.
I followed most of last Friday’s Xarabank and concluded that Beppe Fenech Adami is one of the few remaining consistent and upright MPs.
It was interesting to see Anglu Farrugia telling us viewers that a member of parliament’s honorarium is a mere €1000 a month, while others like Luciano Busuttil said that they don’t have any benefits like telephones and flights.
Jean Pierre Farrugia tried to be smart by saying that the French president cut his own salary but then didn’t tell us that this salary runs to six digits. And Farrugia seems to think that a Maltese cabinet minister should not be paid €65,000 a year for all that responsibility.
Do we expect to entice the best brains to leave their careers in the private sector so to run our country, when we pay them a pittance?
That show was one way of telling viewers, ‘Look what you get when you pay peanuts.’
Franco Debono invariably told us about his “Hames Misteri tat-Tbatija” and I just could not take any more and turned off the TV.
Wake me up when it’s all over.
Ta’ min ifakkar li dan Franco wara li sar kandidat hu mal-Partit Nazzjonalista irid iwaqqaf ukoll bord biex jaghzel il-kandidati – s’intendi la hareg bil-proposta hu ippretenda li jkun ic-chairman …biex ma jaghzilx lil Delia, lil Schiavone, ikecci lil Charlo Bonnici u Beppe Fenech Adami u jekk ituh ic-cans lil Austin u lil Gonzi b’Karm b’kollox.
Jaghzel il-kandidati hu? Kif kien se jaghmel, igellidhom?