Forty years later, we know that human rights were breached
My column in The Malta Independent on Sunday, today:
Forty years after the event, a court of law has at last declared that the shareholders of the National Bank of Malta, which was forcibly taken over by Dom Mintoff’s government after a state-sponsored run which saw a flood of withdrawals, had their human rights breached.
The case in question – Philip Attard Montalto v the Government of Malta ─ refers only to those shareholders who signed over their shares and who were actually a party to this particular suit. However, around 85 per cent of the shareholders had signed their shares over to Mintoff’s government, such were the intimidation, duress and threats of violence or revenge, and most of these individuals (or by now, their heirs) participated in this human rights case.
(…)
Please read the rest via the link below.
36 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-01-12/opinions/forty-years-later-we-know-that-human-rights-were-breached-3662479368/
Brava!!!
The National Bank and BICAL cases are prime examples of Mintoff’s ruthlessness when it came to ensuring that no local power could challenge the State.
The treatment of Cecil Pace of BICAL was particularly horrendous: he spent 14 years inside the Corradino hell-hole – at the time, the prison director’s personal fiefdom – after a kangaroo court convicted him for operating ‘a banking institution with intent to defraud depositors’.
Yet this was not the case. Other than the fact that no bank today holds enough assets to cover all deposits, let alone liquidity, the BICAL not only had a readily-available Barclays guarantee that covered all deposits, but it also had enough assets to reimburse depositors two-fold and some, as evidenced by the huge millions generated by its sham liquidation, which goes on till this very day, enriching whole generations of third-party families in the process. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?
If Joseph Muscat wants to shine the way he likes to, this is a great opportunity for another ‘Joseph kellu jkun…’
Why did you vote for Mintoff?
Because Kevin Ellul Bonici is a blinkered Mintoffjan, that’s why.
When did I vote for Mintoff, La Redoute, please tell me, you seem to know a lot about me.
Well, kev, you are a self-declared Laburist.
I hope that the constitutional case that the PN has against the Electoral Commission doesn’t take that long.
The court has just declared that Mintoff had violated human rights.
Meanwhile, though, Mintoff is back.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140112/local/muscat-strongly-defends-citizenship-scheme-as-ep-debate-approaches.502367
Sorry, meant “these”
To say that justice has been served in this instance is an injustice to those seeking redress and a gross miscarriage of justice in the history of our legal system.
“There is a deep sadness inherent in this judgement in that those who most deserved to hear it read out – for they were the ones on the frontline of Mintoff’s assault ─ are dead, some of them long dead. Their heirs stand on their behalf but beyond those who were already adult at the time, they were not the ones who had to go through that living hell from which most never recovered, financially, physically or psychologically.”
Well said. Those were my thoughts exactly on hearing of the judgement last Thursday. It was a bittersweet victory indeed, since most of those who bore the brunt of Mintoff’s actions that fateful December are no longer alive.
Nor is Mintoff himself.
But his heirs are, living off his millions.
I wonder when the day will come that public officers are held accountable for their own actions. If one has gone so ultra vires so as to breach the fundamental human rights of others, then he or his heirs should compensate, at least in part, the victims. It is all too easy to hide behind the ‘ taxpayer’ who is made to pay in full. Not to mention the fact that the Govt coffers were not the only ones who benefitted from Mintoff’s dastardly act here. There were:
1. Those persons Mintoff regales shares to in the new BOV;
2. Those shareholders who struck commercial deals with Mintoff thus undermining the position of their fellow shareholders “ffirmaw huma Mhux se tiffirma int?”
3. The 10/12 loans over Lm1million which Mintoff just waived thus creating overnight a new wealth order in the country which owed it all to him.
It shouldn’t be just the taxpayer who coughs up.
‘it shouldn’t be just the taxpayer who coughs up’ – exactly. Bank of Valletta who took over all the National Bank’s premises free should be made to pay its share.
[Daphne – You have a problem of law there. It wasn’t Bank of Valletta, in its identity of a legal person, that perpetrated the act. And it is entirely wrong to say that the taxpayer should not be liable through government funds. The bank was nationalised, remember. That means the taxpayer got a whacking great asset worth millions, an entire bank, and profited off it to the tune of many more millions over the years before most of its shareholding was sold. The taxpayer continues to profit now from the fact that the government has a controlling interest.]
Does this mean that the government’s share in BOV belongs to the original share holders?
I should say it certainly does. So does the Italian bank’s share.
Compensation should be by way of these shares being somehow returned to their original owners.
[Daphne – There are not enough government-held shares to return to the original owners as full compensation.]
No. It means that government has to make good for the shareholders’ loss. Signing over government’s shares in Bank of Valletta plc is one possible form of compensation. A cash payout is another.
I read that the National Bank shareholders want a €50 million out-of-court settlement.
Signing over the government-owned shares to individual investors and not to financial institutions would be risky. A cash payout is a better option.
Great, so now Yana Mintoff can stop telling us all that there is no proof and we’re all brainwashed.
Exactly. Now she has “the facts” she needed.
Didn’t she famously tell The Times: “I would need more facts on that” when questioned about human right violations under Mintoff?
“But when asked why she never reacted to the human rights breaches in Malta during her father’s time, she said: “I would need more facts on that.””
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120410/local/Readers-have-the-facts-for-Mintoff-s-daughter.414828
The fact that Mintoff was awarded the Gaddafi Human Rights award (http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080819/local/mintoff-wins-gaddafi-prize-for-human-rights.221360#.UtRYLBRwbIU) is proof enough that he (Mintoff) had no respect whatsoever for human rights.
As you quite pertinently point out towards the end of your article, this case also serves to highlight the injustices carried out in favour of certain businessmen and against others, that also changed the course of their lives forever.
Let us not forget, that whilst some businessmen were deprived of import licences because they refused to pay the percentage to Patrick Holland’s clique on every inward container, there was the one particular importer – who was part of this Government trade clique – who was given the trade licence stamp to use liberally and as he wished from the comfort of his own office.
This, as witnessed years later by a secretary who was ashamed of the willful destruction wrought on other individuals targeted and their businesses.
Unfortunately, such deeply corrupt individuals were simply allowed to continue to thrive.
Nothing, either, has been done to address this situation.
Instead, the targeting has continued afresh.
And what about those established businessmen who were deprived an import licence on certain products, only to see the same products being imported sometime later by someone forming part of the clique.
Fusellu and his bullying tactics come to mind, when he did not even form part of government.
The wheels of justice sure run slow in Malta – they need oiling.
One needs an encyclopedia to list all the breaches of human rights by the MLP.
This was one horrendous breach of human rights that must not be forgotten.
Great article, prosit!
Hooray, let’s all rejoice wearily and all that, but the Stricklandjani who were so viciously screwed by the evil government led by that evil monster Dominic Mintoff almost all voted to have his spiritual child and natural successor Joseph Muscat rule over them.
What good is an obscure court judgement if you let your indignation turn to indifference and eventually to enthusiastic support for your own worst enemy?
Almost all , not all.
I know a handful. Literally.
You would have thought that the class which gave Malta all its sensible politicians, administrators, leaders of industry, scientists and artists would have developed into a sizeable force, a demographic to be reckoned with. Instead, they quietly faded into the background.
Who is to blame for this? Mostly, it’s the Nationalist Party, which failed to provide a welcoming ideological home for these people, and never spoke for them.
Partly, it’s their own fault, for no one will speak for you unless you do so yourself, and they had all the right social connections and mental ability to do so. It is also the fault of Malta’s ridiculous intellectual class, which shuns anyone who doesn’t fit the MLP-PN paradigm.
There is something called The Strickland Foundation. Its overall aim is to advance those values espoused by the original Stricklandjani. Is it? Is it ****. It owns Times of Malta, for heaven’s sake. Can anyone honestly identify today’s Times of Malta as a platform for liberal right, good old British values?
Last year, it launched a writing competition. Look at the choice of titles:
1. Does Malta lag behind in the protection and observance of human rights?
2. Are the Maltese generally complacent when it comes to defending their human rights?
3. Is discrimination ever tolerable? When should discrimination become a human rights issue?
B-O-R-I-N-G! Set an obvious title and you’ll get an obvious answer. How about this:
1. Is Dominic Mintoff a political monster?
2. Should Malta be independent?
3. Should English be Malta’s language of government?
Anyway, my point is that if Gerald Strickland were to rise from the grave and lead us, then by god, I’d follow him. Along with the remaining half a dozen Stricklandjani.
Oh, please. If the PN did not provide a welcoming ideological home, then what did the MLP do? If they voted Labour even though the MLP isn’t a welcoming ideological home for Stricklandjani, then what can I say? They’re in the right place, with a partit tal-lanzit led by a skifuz koccut.
Labour just played the anti-Fascist card. They still do.
The PN should have known better. After all, we credit them with intelligence and moral rectitude.
The PN’s anti-Strickland attitude and historical revisionism pisses ME off and I’m not even remotely from the Stricklandlian caste. If you represent the party’s position then it’s no wonder they lose elections.
Incidentally, what is the PL’s opinion on building monuments to human rights violators?
And if the Government appeals, it will be another 40 years for a decision. That’s justice for you.
A government appeal at this stage is an injustice in itself. The time taken to reach a conclusion is secondary.
According to a certain Anthony Pavia, writing of FB, Mintoff’s decision to take over the Bank was ‘a godsent decision’.