And to think that people elected this sick, sordid lot because The Others were ‘corrupt and arrogant’
Now we have criminal lawyer/police minister Manuel Mallia, a man with a client base of Malta’s worst criminals now in charge of the police and pulling the Police Commissioner’s strings, accused publicly of blackmailing his client’s opponent when he was already on the Labour ticket and campaigning for election.
And he has wriggled out of justifying his silence on SOME of the details of the rift between the Farrugia/John’s Garage brothers, which were crucial for the public to get a balanced perspective on the matter rather than only what the Labour Party wished to use to damage the Nationalists, by citing ‘client confidentiality’.
What rot. If he was subject to client confidentiality, and he was, then he shouldn’t have used the matter for political advantage for his political party, and he certainly should not have addressed press conferences on the subject when he couldn’t answer questions because of ‘client confidentiality’, except that instead of explaining this he lied instead.
This is like that other bit of scum, Evarist Bartolo, who gave press conferences on the same subject and said that he could not reveal his sources because he is “a journalist”.
Neither of them seems to realize that they are primarily politicians and that they have no business using ‘client confidentiality’ and ‘journalist’s protection of sources’ to cover their sorry asses.
It doesn’t help Manuel Mallia’s credibility – what credibility – one bit when we know that even though he himself said nothing in public about the details of the case and pretended to know nothing even though he was the lawyer to the Farrugia siblings against their brother George, those details and documents ended up in the hands of Labour-friendly newspaper Malta Today.
The prime minister should get rid of this piece of dangerous, corrupt rubbish who should have never been allowed onto the Labour ticket still less been appointed to a cabinet post.
But he won’t. Mallia is the direct cause of the most damage this government has suffered since March, through his decisions, his behaviour and his sidekicks – think about it, almost every big news story about a Labour government eff-up has involved Mallia, including the sale of passports. Yet Muscat won’t act because he can’t.
We have here, it is obvious, another Jason Micallef/brown envelope scenario. If Mallia thinks nothing of trying to blackmail his client’s opponent, he will think nothing of trying to blackmail the prime minister.
That is a rational conclusion. And that is why he was able to push Jose Herrera out of the way and grab the Justice and Police Ministry for himself, though a bit of horse-trading some months down the line had the Justice Ministry moved to the prime minister’s portfolio.
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No wonder the “naħdmu ma’ kulħadd” thing has work the way it has these past nine months. If the ‘united’ Labour ‘movement’ front – always portrayed like some loving family willing to scoop up the destitute – is held together through lies and blackmail, no wonder they don’t even want to work with opposing parties and stakeholders. After all, with friends like these, who needs enemies?
So the real king in all but name is Mallia and Muscat is just a pawn . Even those who voted for Muscat have been betrayed . We’re living in a game of chess . God help us .
Daphne, please leave Dr Mallia in peace today. He needs the serenity to ‘choose’ the best person to be ‘recommended’ to the Prime Minister in order to be appointed Commander of the Armed Forces .
When this appointment is over and if Mr Curmi is appointed, some questions are in order, eg is Mr Curmi’s current position on the Lija fireworks factory different from that before March 2013? If yes, how and why?
I can figure now how Manuel Mallia earned those half a million euro and more, paid in CASH.
What a coincidence, that Manwel Mallia joined the Labour campaign when he did?
What a coincidence, that the oil scandal was leaked to the media when it was? Orchestrated a month to the day?
What a coincidence, that Labour involvement in the scandal is not a big issue in the press now.
There is no such thing as coincidence.
All roads lead to Rome.
I once asked a journalist point blank whether he understood the implications of increasing volume capacity of gas storage threefold at Marsaxlokk. This was soon after the design intent was issued, he wasn’t even aware.
There’s this readership war rendering those two illustrious newspapers self-referential.
But this particular road leads to chaos. In reality, the people who are actually behind the oil scandal, referred to by superone as the scandal of the century, are MLP guys, including Cisju Mifsud, the brother of the other MLP financial guru, who insisted on his cut of the dirty dealings.
There was a sermon on ONE just the other day, with the preacher trying to discredit George Farrugia following the latter’s revelations on Minister Mallia’s dirty dealings during his relationship with the Farrugia family.
Now the scandal is no longer the scandal of the century, but it has been downgraded to a very low level ONE.
Why was Manuel Mallia even allowed to set foot inside PN headquarters prior to him going over to Labour? That’s the sort of political class we have – bipartisan corruption. It’s all a bloody game to them. Labour or Nationalist, they’re all in it for the money.
One can’t help wondering what Joseph Muscat knew.
When Austin Gatt called his impromptu press conference, Saviour Balzan entered Pieta’ literally panting and spent the next hour spluttering twists and turns to his source, nature of documents and devotion to Austin Gatt.
It was a sight.
If anyone thinks our prime minister is one who’ll take centre stage with decisions, they’re mistaken, because a follower he’ll remain. Muscat will never put himself in the position he instinctively attacks.
You’re absolutely right in your article on The Malta Independent today: the PN’s fault is to consider decent judgement as some universal suffrage.
The story here is that all corruption centered around the Labour Party.
Is it true that originally Dr Mallia wanted to be a PN candidate and it was only when his request was refused that he joined Labour?
From what I can remember, I think Mallia had said that the PN never approached him and so that means that he was approached by the PL to contest its ticket.
I remember him, sitting at the main table on a typical Sunday morning activity at the PN Office in San Gwann (early-mid-80’s or so) and flanked, on either side, by Dr Censu Tabone, Dr George Bonello Dupuis, Dr Francis Zammit Dimech, Dr Joe Borg.
That scoundrels run the show in 2013 is at least partly the result of Guido Demarco’s terrible lack of judgement back in the 1980s and into the 90s. He was the sort who valued the brotherhood of the jurisprudential professional above everything else, sometimes letting it over-ride his better judgement. “Il-gurisprudenza tezor” was one of his most famous aphorisms.
I would agree, were it not that Maltese jurisprudence seeks self-preservation rather than justice. Maltese lawyers, judges and magistrates may love the Law, but they do not love Justice.
Criminal lawyers are the worst of a bad lot. Their work brings them in contact with the dregs of society from the lowest to the highest rungs. In order to sell themselves, they must – like any salesman – put themselves on the client’s side. And I mean literally. Anyone who thinks it’s just a clinical taking of position in defence of an accused rights is deluded. They become friends with their criminal clients.
Now I am not privy to the contents of Guido Demarco’s rolodex, or his filing cabinet. But I see in him an example of monumental delusion. He seemed to think that membership of the legal profession is an agent of positive change. That somehow, promoting someone to judge or magistrate, or calling them to the bar, would turn rotten specimens into decent human beings.
How wrong he was.
In this way, he mentored sorry examples like Anglu Farrugia or Manuel Mallia. And foisted them upon us for the ages.
That is the Nationalist Party’s bequest to Malta. And that is the reason people like me hold their noses and try to swallow back the rising bile each time an election comes round and we have to vote for the PN, because the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.
Simon Busuttil may be a decent person, and smart and untainted too. But he cannot undo generations of rot. It is more than any man is capable of.
Come 2018, I will be voting for the PN, yet again, knowing that the screwing will go on, perhaps with a couple of drops of WD40 to ease the pain. But it will go on. The canker in our midst will be as malignant as ever.