I’ve been looking for a way to explain how Joseph Muscat uses the rule book to break the rules. And now a reader has put it perfectly: Muscat uses the letter of the law to break its spirit.
Posted by Matthew S:
Joseph Muscat has a knack for following the letter of the law in order to break its spirit.
The same thing happened with the Farrugia Sacco case.
We had lawyers, experts and politicians debating whether it is legal to revive an impeachment motion but nobody bothered explaining why motions are considered ‘dead’ when a new government is elected.
Motions are ‘killed’ so that a new administration is not encumbered by the priorities of an old one. It is assumed that a new administration will have different priorities to the one preceding it. Instead of making the new administration vote down bills left over by the old one, all bills are just pronounced ‘dead’ in order to move things along and save time.
It therefore follows that if there are cases where a new administration has the same agenda as the old one, it can continue where the old one left off without missing a beat.
A new cabinet can definitely revive the interests of an older one. You don’t even need to consult Erskine May to figure that out. You just need some common sense and an understanding of why ‘motion killing’ exists.
When a law is discussed in a vacuum without an explanation of why it came into existence in the first place, it is easy to interpret it in whatever way one feels like.
A law is not an old custom which we follow just for the hell of it. We follow a law because there is a logical reason to do so. When the spirit of the law is better served by ignoring the letter of the law, we do not follow the law to the letter. If the law’s spirit is constantly broken by its letter, we strike the law off the books and pronounce it obsolete.
It’s a bit like driving. If you take the same route to work everyday because it is the most efficient one, it doesn’t follow that when the road is blocked, you should not take a more long-winded route to get to your destination.
The reason why Joseph Muscat stopped at the roadblock and refused to take another route is because he was not really interested in getting to work. The roadblock just happened to be the perfect excuse to avoid doing so.
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Ix-xitan m’ghandux halib u jaghmel il-gbejniet.
Joseph Muscat may slip through with this scheme, but he will be seen in the EU corridors as a person who can’t be trusted.
On the subject of trust: we can now see the complex situation which may be developing in Marsaxlokk Bay. Foolish people were lead to believe that an LNG gas plant would be safe to run in an inhabited area as long as people voted in favour of it.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140131/world/israels-back-up-gas-supply-floats-far-offshore.504846#.UutBQ83QQXw
From this article one can see the installation costs, distances, dangers and time-frames of LNG supply ships. To make things worse for Malta, we use architects, politicians and lawyers to assess the risks when the proper professionals who should be doing this are engineers who know what to do and who will take a lot of time calculating and evaluating the situation.
If something goes wrong in this LNG plant, Joseph Muscat will cover his ass by saying that The People voted for it and the MEPA approved it.
Thanks, Gahan.
That’s real danger being planned into the thing.
Muscat’s own ‘time-bomb’ explodes in March 2015. His only worry is to survive that ‘explosion.’
http://www.maltarightnow.com/?module=news&at=Tliet+xhur+wara+li+suppost+ing%26%23295%3Bata+l%2Dkuntratt+g%26%23295%3Bat%2Dtanker+tal%2DPower+Station%2C+Konrad+Mizzi+ma+jridx+jag%26%23295%3Bti+informazzjoni&t=a&aid=99853955&cid=19
Our energy consultant can’t find a picture of the ship pretty enough to show us.
Excellent post, Matthew S, thank you.
Something else that had me puzzled was the capping bit.
Nobody was forcing Muscat to cap the number of faux Maltese. He came up with this figure on his own, although as Daphne had pointed out, the figure smacks of oneupmanship, ie Muscat trying to eclipse Gonzi’s negotiated Eur1.2 billion in EU funds.
I believe that Muscat had self-capped the numbers so as not to alarm the European Commission with the prospect of a horde of faux Maltese invading the EU. Therefore one may safely assume that Muscat knew that the EU would oppose his scheme.
He pulled a fast one on the European Commission in much the same way that he pulled a fast one on the Maltese electorate. He told them about his roadmap but didn’t actually put it into the electoral programme, springing it on us after they had voted for him already.
Soot on.
There is a Macchiavellian mind at work here. I’m not sure if it is Joseph Muscat or somebody working things out for him.
The normal rules of fair play do not apply here. It will always be a non-level playing-field, not so much because of the majority he has in parliament, but because Muscat has no qualms about doing the wrong thing if it suits his purpose. The gloves have to come off.
One cannot win this battle playing as a gentleman, by the rules. Remember Paul Boffa with Dom Mintoff. The first, a gentleman, was destroyed by the other, a man with no scruples.
Simon Busuttil and all around him must understand this before it is too late. They need to determine whether they can pull their sleeves up, and understand that in a battle between gentlemen and scum, the scum win because scum stop at nothing.
The PN simply needs to stop following the agenda. There’s this complex stifling any debate at the moment.
Mainly coming from Muscat. The man’s incapable of stating his motives, which at the moment are Henley and Partners and what can be termed a future fund.
The real question here is whether we want to go back to big government, which he’ll desparately need to sustain.
I questioned this before, but politicians are not reading. With his 1 billion euro, Muscat will increase the size of government by about 25%.
Muscat will not only create a big government. But the economy will become centralised and government-dependent once again. Why would anyone need to worry about private sector investment and work if big brother has a fund of 1 billion euros to spend? The government will use up all local resources with its budget, so even the impact on inflation needs to be questioned.
Besides, has anyone tried to understand what is the impact on Maltese society, the environment, the financial system, and future economic sustainability if Muscat really has in mind to cram the development of 15 years into 5 years? What will follow after those 15 years – will it be 15 years of big depression?
I’m not saying I believe Muscat and what he says, but someone should start seeing beyond what he says.
Is the Opposition living on another planet, or what?
It takes time to recognise the deviousness of the process.
In this environment, we are fortunate to have Daphne bring it all to the fore.
In environments where one has to figure it out on one’s own or in twos, the mentality has to verge on the paranoid to fully understand the twists and turns of this psychopathy.
Sometimes it can take over ten years to fully comprehend when one is isolated and the picture and overview is not covered by the media, but on the contrary, deflected by public image.
Here we are perversely fortunate to be on a fast track.
I think with these kind of comments you are making a myth out of Joseph Muscat, which he isn’t, and attracting even more interest in the capabilities of this person.
[Daphne – That’s a false argument, because it starts off from the premiss that low cunning and scamming others are ‘capabilities’ and that those who behave like that are to be admired. That may well be the case with one of the two Maltas, but it most certainly is not so with the other, European, Malta.]
Well, Mrs. CaruanaGalizia, low cunning and scamming have been Malta’s capabilities for quite sometime!
The era where gentlemen counted is well and truly dead. The difference with Joseph Muscat & Co is that they are ready to blatantly do it in the open, because in Malta those who behave that way are looked up to by the wider populace.
Yes. Put differently, with Joseph Muscat and the Malta Labour Party you always start with the presumption that they are guilty. You must then leave it up to them to prove themselves innocent.
For them, good faith has no meaning – it is an alien term. Let’s see it this way. Rats do not act in good faith.
If they were not guilty, they would have put the scheme on their electoral programme. They got it through by scheming and manipulating all the way to the EU.
This should remain a focal point with the Nationalist Party.
‘Ratsgeoisie’
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-01-31/news/pn-meps-hope-third-revision-of-citizenship-scheme-will-provide-genuine-link-3833790465/
I just can’t understand why the Opposition is so far in denial and expects Labour to act in good faith.
As explained so well above, they don’t care for the spirit of any law or form of decency if it goes against their narrow interests.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-01-31/news/government-evasive-on-actual-residency-requirement-3833298946/
“…In a statement on Wednesday evening Commissioner Viviane Reding said that “no certificate of naturalisation will be issued unless the applicant provides proof that he/she has resided in Malta for a period of at least 12 months immediately preceding the day of issuing of the certificate of naturalisation.”
Dr Muscat said that this meant that the minimum six month residency requirement was raised to a year. But the six month period mentioned by the Prime Minister was never a residency requirement.
It was in fact the minimum period of time for an application to be processed by Henley and the government. Journalists had always been told that applications would be processed within six months to two years.
Or better, the prime minister came up with another lie yesterday. We can take it as a given that any rule will be ignored, he needs to issue those passports the way he had promised.
This isn’t about the scheme anymore.
Goes to show that Commissioner Reding has no clue of Joseph Muscat’s under-handed way of doing things.
At the same time that she said that, Joseph Muscat was already twisting things to his advantage with his blatant lies.
I totally agree with you that we can take it as a given that any rule will be ignored.
Love how they invariably pretend to miss the point. The photo was in jest. Also love to hear the explanation given.
Here’s a guess: poor Mallia tripped and landed softly with his ear against the door. At that point his back cramped up so he was unable to remove his ear from against the door.
As the person who saw him startled him, the jolt of adrenaline relaxed his back muscles permitting him to straighten up. His doctor, who is also Dalli’s GP, gave him a medical certificate to prove all this.
http://www.independent.com.mt/mobile/2014-01-31/news/minister-mallia-replies-to-eavesdropping-report-3833298949/
What cannot change is that Henley and Partners are effectively our government for the next ten years. Muscat demanded that the still awaited billion euros are not received by the government under the usual financial rules that apply to government finances, but by Henley. Only he knows why he has gone feral and colonial on this.
The European Commission has approved a naked sale of EU citizenship. Other EU member countries or at least the smaller ones like Cyprus are going to jump to the ruling..
A five-year residency requirement was up to last week reportedly described by Joe Bannister to be something that could not be supervised. One year is even less visible.
People with insight can see that this scheme is not destined to boost economic activity and long-term employment. The cash is going to be used to create only an appearance of wealth whilst a substantial part of the Henley fees and interest on funds is going to disappear from their offshore account and turn up elsewhere.
Despite the macho talk of many zeros and zillions, I doubt if we are going to see any real progress in our standard of living over the next ten years of the lazy and corrupt governance we have seen so far.
Isn’t it the Commission who has let us down? Wasn’t it our only hope to get out of selling Malta so cheaply? Anything we try to do now to oppose this scheme will be defeated because the ultimate go ahead has been given. Am I thinking straight?
[Daphne – It is actually your government that has let you down. As the Hungarians have discovered to their cost, the European Commission can’t and won’t protect them from the depredations of a government with a two-thirds majority in the house and the ability to change the constitution. The main protection that EU membership affords us against the ravages of our own government is the freedom it gives us to leave Malta without actually having to emigrate, a freedom we did not have in the 1970s and 1980s. I have always been quite clear in my mind about this. I did not vote for EU membership so that the EU would protect me. I voted for EU membership so that my children and others of their generation could get the hell out of here if necessary.]
Thanks for clarification. I had no part in electing this government but unfortunately, like many others, I have to lump it. How I miss the Nationalist era when what was ethically correct was generally the order of the day.
Totally correct, it cannot be much more clearer than this. At 42, I missed the European opportunity, which I voted for, but my son is still very young. He can make it away from this tiny little bit of a rock where most people’s analytical skills were never developed.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140131/local/cabinet-would-study-ags-recommendations-on-gentlemens-clubs.504926
Cabinet? Perhaps a visit could provide for an informed opinion in the decision making process.
Get Leo Brincat to blink.
Let us not forget that the first thing Joseph Muscat did after being elected prime minister was to pay an official visit to his old school, St Aloysius College. That implies many things.