I hate to say it, but Manuel Mallia isn’t bright at all. He’s actually quite stupid, with a sort of low cunning.
Manuel Mallia, godfather at the christening of a topless lapdancer’s baby: another intelligent decision
The Minister of Homeland Security yesterday gave what one newspaper described as “a hastily organised press conference” and spoke for a whole hour trying to justify his sale of Maltese passports.
I listened to the video of his fudging protestations on Times of Malta and was immediately transported to the hour or so I spent in the witness stand during Meinrad Calleja’s trial by jury for cocaine trafficking (he was sentenced to 15 years in prison).
As Mallia strutted about beneath me, trying to catch me out, using a stentorian tone to pronounce logical fallacies and non sequiturs for the benefit of the jury, I clearly remember being totally gobsmacked. Was this the great and celebrated criminal lawyer of urban legend? The man had a mind like drunken Catherine wheel that thinks itself most cunning, I thought. Everything he says can be instantly destroyed with simple logic and proper deployment of the facts (but first you need the facts), because the man literally trades on emotion and that is why he plies his trade before a jury.
I do not exaggerate when I say that I left that witness stand convinced that Mallia is of below average intelligence and nothing I have seen or heard of him since has persuaded me otherwise. What the man has is a sort of low cunning, but that is useful only in certain narrow situations. What we are now seeing at a national level – because he has been catapulted into government – is what I saw in the witness stand some 10 years ago.
Mallia has made one mess after another, practically all of them unnecessary and all of them demonstrably the result of poor judgement and lousy decision-making skills. Those in turn are caused by low-level intelligence. I would go one step further and say that Mallia is actually stupid – stupid but with a bit of street-cunning. I would never describe him as an intelligent man, for there is nothing about him that warrants that.
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If there isn’t a serious and valid personal explanation to which we cannot be privy, here lies your answer (note the gap between 1973 and 1979):
Career history
Born in Sliema Dr Emmanuel Mallia read for a law diploma and degree, graduating as a legal procurator from the Royal University of Malta in 1973, and lawyer from the University of Malta 1979 respectively.
It was the same with Franco Debono I believe.
His attempts at manipulating the Attorney General’s half-hearted answer on the constitutionality or otherwise of revoking citizenship is a further example of which part of the cutlery drawer you should find him in.
If you’re legitimate and you’ve got close to a million euros to splash about on citizenship, commissions and sundry ancillary fees, you’re welcomed everywhere. You don’t need to buy a passport. And you certainly don’t need to do it in secret.
That means that all the sales of Maltese passports are going to be sales to people of dubious moral character, that the due diligence was not done properly or at all, and that the purchasers did not disclose information which would disqualify them from citizenship. You don’t need to break any laws or constitutional provisions to withdraw citizenship granted in this manner.
The doubt is whether or not Henley will be able to claim innocence through ignorance resulting from incompetence or whether there will also be grounds for THEIR prosecution.
I’ll bet the law doesn’t even contemplate sanctions for the concessionaire for not carrying out a proper due diligence exercise or actively aiding and abetting a fraudulent and unqualified applicant.
Civil Union Act, equating same-sex union with marriage = Suspension of all applications for child adoption by Maltese persons.
Sale of Maltese Citizenship shrouded in secrecy = Malta kicked out of Schengen Area and loss of visa-free access to USA, as well as to the remaining 130 other countries where Maltese travelers currently enjoy such access.
What price Malta citizenship then?
That he uses somebody like Silvio Scerri as a crutch is enough to show that he is stupid and has really poor judgement.
So in a few words he’s a stupid, fat, ugly f*ck-wit. What a mess Malta will be in after five years with him in that post. Viva Labour.
I am waiting for Salvu Balzan to give him a nickname. He has, in the past, regaled us with history lessons about French cardinals of the past.
Will Le Roi Soleil do for Manuel? In terms of power, maybe, but there’s nothing soleil about him.
What’s wrong with Bullfrog?
Mallia is the classical Italian “furbo matricolato”.
He can literally get away with murder.
More so with Peter Paul at the helm.
Manwel Mallia is ALL ABOUT commissions.
I was rather taken aback by these comments about Manuel Mallia because I did not realize that anyone thought he was anything but stupid except for those who themselves are stupid.
For years Mallia was the Secretary of the Rent-a-Car association and spent most of his days defending parking tickets in court.
It was only after the commencement of his romantic liaison with the daughter of Malta’s leading criminal lawyer, who subsequently took over this “title” from her father, that he started to practise criminal law.
His arrogance and strutting about was learned in the criminal court – however, unfortunately for him and now us, intelligence does not get absorbed in a similar manner through osmosis.
He therefore evolved into someone with strong traits of arrogance but a lack of intelligence: not a good combination but very common.
Witness to this has been that a significant proportion of the gaffes made in the first 8 months of this government have been made by him or his underlings. The tragedy is not so much that however, but that he is not learning from these gaffes and ploughs on relentlessly, something that he will no doubt continue to do within this term unless Joseph Muscat, in the presence of Mrs Michelle Muscat, has the sense to remove him.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-11-03/news/ministry-says-busuttil-contradicting-himself-3080388608/
Mallia can’t even seem to understand the basic gist of Busuttil’s argument (and that of many others); as a Mr Rotcaf commented below the article:
“What he is saying Mr. Mallia which is quite simple really is the following.
1. The idea has potential.
2. The scheme as proposed now does not involve investment but sale. You should check a dictionary for the difference between investment and sale.
3. Your scheme is a sale of Maltese Nationality whatever name you care to give it.
4. What the PN is saying that the obtaining of the Maltese nationality is tied with actual physical investment in the Islands and not 650,000 Euro.
Why do you have all those people working for you if they cannot explain such a simple concept.”
I know Mallia’s trying to make the Opposition sound incompetent, but he’s only showing how much of a moron he is that much more.
Nice suit. Looks like the priest emptied the baptismal font on the poor bloke.