No, Mr Engerer – politics are the reason the Labour Party took you on despite the proceedings against you
Judge Mallia made a specific point in his judgement yesterday: that the police were correct to act as they did. You don’t usually get that kind of remark in a judgement. It’s supposed to be taken for granted that police action was warranted.
I imagine Judge Mallia would have done that to settle, once and for all, the notion being bandied about by Cyrus Engerer that this case was politically motivated.
Of course it wasn’t politically motivated. He did what he did. His victim filed a complaint with the police. The police investigated. The nature of the crime meant that his victim’s dropping the charges was not enough, because third parties and public means of communication (the internet/email) were involved.
Even if the police wanted to drop the case, they couldn’t.
Some of Engerer’s supporters are commenting on the timing of this judgement, in the thick of the EP campaign. It’s not a coincidence, they’re saying – it’s been done deliberately right now to hurt his electoral chances.
Inevitably, a parallel conspiracy theory has emerged in the opposing camp: the government wants to force Engerer out of the electoral race and used this appeal to do it. I imagine these to be people who never got a proper education in civics, institutions and the separation of powers. The government can end up controlling the police in many ways, but it can’t control judges. Judges, unlike commissioners of police, cannot be removed at whim by angry or manipulative governments.
And to suggest that Judge Mallia is controlled by either the government or the Opposition is patently absurd.
Yes, I believe that Judge Mallia timed the delivery of his judgement consciously, but not in the conspiratorial manner that is being discussed on Facebook. He would have done so out of a sense of responsibility to Maltese society, to the public. He did, in other words, the right thing by remembering that he does not operate in a vacuum: in the context of an election and with a judgement pending about an electoral candidate, the responsible thing to do would be to deliver that judgement before people go to the polls and not afterwards.
This is not out of vindictiveness to the individual, but out of a sense of responsibility to society. You do not wait for people to vote for a man as their representative in the European Parliament and then just weeks later deliver a judgement handing down a prison sentence.
The people who are complaining about the timing should be grateful for it. Ask all those of us who voted for Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.
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If the same-sex-marriage-cum-adoption-not-in-the-manifesto law was defeated, would he have claimed that discrimination against gay people was behind the proceedings against him? I wonder.
He is playing the political discrimination card in his favour because the PN did the RIGHT thing and suspended him.
He cannot play the political discrimination card.
He is in politics.
I’ve heard from ex-colleagues of his that he always tries to play the victim. Before it was because he was gay, then because he was PN, then because the PN government controlled the police, then because he was Labour. Always trying to find an excuse for his own actions.
Dan qed jimplika li l-Mhallef Mallia huwa manipulat mill Partit Nazzjonalista?
Biex gejjin, magistratura devjata issa?
Prosit Daphne ta’ dan il-blog. Illum kelli incident u laqqat tghajjira nobis minn membri tal-familja ghax saru jafu li jien kontra il-kacca fir-rebbiegha u tfajt post u kkwotajt wiehed mill-posts tieghek rigward dak li gara min Mr Packham tal-BBC.
U bqajt skantata bl-injoranza ta’ kaccaturi Maltin u Ghawdxin. Jghajjruni u l-hin kollu niftakar fik u nghid imnalla naqra l-post ta’ Daphne u ghajnejha miftuhin ghax zgur li kont naqa’ ghal-livell baxx taghhom.
Li kieku l-injoranza tixghel kieku Malta m’ghandiex bzonn ta’ power station. Nerga nghidlek prosit u kompli sejra hekk ghax qed taghmel differenza.
the last 4 paragraphs of this blog are spot on.
The Cheshire cat got what was coming for him.
Miskin kellu l-bagalji diga ppakkjati.
Did he really withdraw his nomination? The Electoral Commission website is still showing Mr Cyrus Engerer as a Malta Labour Party candidate as at 1215 today.
There’s your answer:
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-05-09/news/engerers-name-still-to-appear-on-ep-election-ballot-sheet-4916314112/
The comments by watchful eye and the one under that Malta Independent article are quite correct: did Cyrus Engerer withdraw from the MEP elections, or not?
And in what form did he do so, legally speaking?
We already had one candidate saying he was withdrawing – HuManwel Cuschieri – and then making a U-turn and a come back.
Is this going to be the second one – perhaps after Cyrus Engerer turns the Labour voters’ sympathy in his favour?
Couldn’t have said it better:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140509/local/cyrus-engerer-case-shows-muscats-lack-of-political-judgement-busuttil.518335
Judges should not look at politicians differently.
If the prosecution/attorney general did not appeal in this case defended none other by our Law Commissioner, it would have been an ugly precedent in our case law.
By now the internet would have been a bigger battleground of ex-lovers.
Dak li kien jonqosna halli nkomplu nitilfu il-kredibilta li Cyrus Engerer jigi elett fil-parlament Ewropej u tohrog is-sentenza wara.
Did the LGBT crew ever, at any stage, declare their disagreement/disgust/disapproval of their colleague’s criminal actions? Do we assume that the LGBT community condone criminals?
Good news for Marlene Mizzi.
Even Cyrus should be grateful for the timing of the judgement because it gave him the chance to resign discreetly. Imagine were he to resign from MEP if elected, how much more publicity there would be, which would also bring not only his but also Malta’s name in disrepute, mhux bizzejjed kellna lil Claudette Abela Baldacchino u l-frodi taghha.
Was this the reason for Joseph Cuschieri’s change of heart about contesting the MEP election after having a meeting with the PM ?
Cyrus Engerer withdrew from the MEPs Elections on the PL ticket.
If and only if he is a responsible citizen (he never really was a politician) he should immediately resign from politics, given the court sentence which proved did he committed a criminal act against his former boyfriend.
He is definitely unfit for politics.
It’s rather telling that two of the most twisted and amoral people in Maltese politics had to be the ones to militate to bring in two controversial laws – JPO and his divorce bill and Engerer with his gay marriage/adoption law. This will go down in history as poetic justice.
Cyrus Engerer’s case shows the contrast between the former and the present Police Commissioners.
Police Commissioner John Rizzo did not get political interference from the PN government and was free to proceed with prosecution against Engerer whereas Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit did get political interference from PL government and did not proceed with the prosecution of John Dalli.
Beautiful post, Daphne.