Exactly what do you call this if not corruption?
Criminal lawyer to the Animal Rights secretariat at Eur6,000 a year to top up his salary as Law Commissioner and Chief of Constitutional Reform, and his income from private work which he does full time.
Franco Debono, who won his seat in parliament on the PN ticket, cooperates with the Labour Opposition to bring down the PN government, does whatever he can to attack and discredit his party leader and prime minister, attacks and vilifies his own team, and ends up throwing his full weight behind the rival party to help bring it to power while bringing down the party through which he got his seat.
He then celebrates with Labour and is given, as a reward for services rendered in bringing down his own team and bringing its rivals to power, a salary, a car, perks and allowances as Law Commissioner and chief of Constitutional Reform.
Nobody is in any doubt that these positions were given as a reward (corruption) for doing what he did, and nobody is under any illusions that he is qualified to fill them – not even the prime minister who put him there, because he seems to expect no actual work from him in return and probably hasn’t got any yet.
Now we discover through a question in parliament and the answer given (the documents were placed on the table of the house rather than the reply being given verbally, which is why the press did not pick it up, that even this was not enough corruption.
Franco Debono wished to be corrupted further and given even more gifts from his new masters in return for the services he rendered to them by virtue (vice, actually) of his disloyalty to his own team.
Every two months, Roderick Galdes’s secretariat for animals pays Debono Eur1,000 to top up his salary as Law Commissioner and Chief of Constitutional Reform, which is apparently a part-time job because he is also allowed to work full-time as a criminal lawyer, defending crooks and drug-dealers in court.
This money is paid to him as a retainer, presumably because animals need criminal lawyers too, but so far, his services have not been required and have not been used, according to the parliamentary reply. So no dogs and cats dealing in heroin then. That’s good to know.
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PQ 4599 http://www.pq.gov.mt/pqweb.nsf/5ab326fbcb184092c1256877002c4f19/c1257881003b3b78c1257c22005a26a0?OpenDocument
Cats and dogs do not need Franco Debono’s services, but some rats do.
This is unbelievable.
While being retained by the Animal Rights Secretariat, Franco Debono appears in Court to defend two men accused of “hunting-related crimes”.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130831/local/two-men-fined-for-hunting-related-crimes.484259#.UoVSmNI_seU
Never mind that, as someone whose hobby used to be cock-fighting, Debono is hardly suited to be an animal rights lawyer.
Doesn’t Franco Debono keep around 400 birds in cages, and isn’t he keen on cock-fighting?
They keep on paying him and he keeps asking for more. He did it with Gonzi and now with Muscat. What a lowlife existence.
Franco Debono is a bird-trapper himself and also known to be the perpetrator of cock fights, in the past if not now.
Hardly the appropriate choice.
Compare and contrast:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131114/world/disgraced-german-ex-president-on-trial-on-corruption-charges.494703#.UoVvoScueV4
Do you think I should call him on his mobile number, you know the one that kept ringing even in the off position?
My cat has a territorial dispute with the neighbour’s chihuahua and I thought I could give them the opportunity to settle in court before things get bloody.
God only knows how many more such assignments exist that we do not know about. Xi hmieg jaqq.
Why does he still have police protection outside his residence 24 hrs a day is what I would like to know.
It is wrong to assume that the retainer is to advise the Parliamentary Secretary on how to defend the rights of animals. It could just as well be to help defend him against accusations by animals’ rights groups.
It could also be to help him find loopholes in the Hunting Regulations that would allow hunting and trapping to go on.
You mean “technical loopholes” in the EU Directive.
It is not ‘strange’ for the irrelevant non-entity from Ghaxaq to keep bobbing up every now and then – but always for the strangest of reasons.
Traditur. U l-provi baqaw hierga wara l-elezzjoni.
Wouldn’t it be wise to stop and think,
If it was not thanks to Franco Debono, there could have been the possibility of still having a P.N. govt.
Doesn’t that give you the shivers ?
Instead of celebrating Valletta as the Cultural City we would have received an award as the most corrupt member of the E.U.
[Daphne – I see you’re missing the current spate of lousy press, Mr Loporto. There are no lengths to which a man will not go to justify a very stupid decision in which he has invested so much emotion and beyond that, his very self-respect.]
The epitome of indignation who seems to have lost its croak.