This is how the government rewards Giovanni Bonello for lending it his name
This hideous appointment tells you all you need to know about the government’s sincerity in talk of justice reform
The respected human rights lawyer and long-serving judge in the European Court of Human Rights, Giovanni Bonello, graciously accepted to chair the incoming government’s Justice Reform Commission and has taken the job very seriously indeed, working hard in the conviction that this was a genuine exercise in reform.
I was rather more sceptical, as my starting-point tends to be that you can’t trust some people as far as you can throw them. My view was that at that stage in the game, the new government was far more interested in collecting famous and important scalps to borrow their credibility and legitimacy than it was in the results they could produce, because it didn’t actually want those results but only the names.
I couldn’t shake off this feeling no matter how hard I tried, and nothing that has happened since has convinced me otherwise.
There is another thing I have noticed about the way this government operates: that once it has what it wants from you, it will not treat you with respect but with contempt. It will undermine you, ignore what you say, insult you, let you down, and it will do so in public. This is a tactic for exerting power and control. It is not mere bad manners or sheer stupidity; it is conscious and deliberate.
The Justice Minister, and so I assume the prime minister too, knows that one of Giovanni Bonello’s biggest bug-bears is the manner in which judges and magistrates are selected and appointed. He is voluble on the subject. He has dedicated much time and space in the Justice Reform Commission precisely to reform in this matter.
And how does the government repay him? With a public insult: not only does it show no inclination to change the judiciary appointments system, but it actually seizes upon this very system and the vast scope for abuse to which Giovanni Bonello objects and maximises it to appoint a party apparatchik and crony, a man who couldn’t be more unfit for purpose.
They bring Giovanni Bonello on board and when they’ve got what they want, their response is: “Here’s Judge Wenzu Mintoff. Take that and deal with it. Ha ha ha. Yes, Wenzu Mintoff. Because we can. And because we fully intend to carry on with our strategy of systematically undermining institutions with contemptuous and insulting appointments.”
The Malta Independent reports this morning:
Judge Emeritus Giovanni Bonello, who last year was appointed head of the Justice Reform Commission, declined to comment on individual appointments.
“The Commission for the Reform of the Administration of Justice has made some quite specific recommendations on the minimum requirements to ensure that persons appointed to the judiciary respect the basic standards of independence, impartiality, integrity and efficiency,” Dr Bonello said.
In an interview with the Malta Independent earlier this year, Dr Bonello said that Prime Ministers should no longer be king-maker when it comes to appointing judges and magistrates.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-07-18/news/wenzu-mintoff-tried-to-kick-me-from-the-witness-stand-lawyer-5880217602/
The Bonello Commission report deals with many issues concerning the judiciary and the legal system. The judiciary was critical of this report. However the government has started implementing some of the report’s recommendations.
Let them to it, that it tear apart the very fabric they managed to penetrate.
In the end, it will be those who chummed up who’ll remain isolated. Social waste.
When Muscat vouched on TV he’ll be their lord protector if old Labour won’t subscribe to taghna lkoll, their fate was sealed.
And did they see it coming. Must be horrific waking every morning to prep one’s nose.
Pretty much the same thing has happened with the Ornis committee and the appointment of Mark Anthony Falzon as its chairman.
We’ll start having these kind of surprise judgements:
http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2014/07/18/berlusconi-assolto-nel-processo-dappello-ruby-non-ci-fu-concussione/1064750/
The Prime Minister: “Ahna htarna lil Lawrence Mintoff (because now he is no longer Wenzu)…ahna nnominajna lil Lawrence Mintoff…”
Dictatorship, full stop.
The house of the rising sun (L-Gharix) is still up for sale.
On first reading your post I agreed but then I asked myself what use the Labour Party has for credibility. I think that they did not appoint people like Judge Bonello to important posts to get credibility (credibility with whom?) but to silence articulate critics.
Other people like Franco Debono were given posts because even though they may not be as articulate they are potentially vociferous critics. Same thing happened with Lou Bondi.
What I find least surprising is that the government can get away with it.
However, what I fail to understand is how even some PN supporters not only don’t care, but repeat the PL party line over and over again: Until the PN change, they won’t be in government and this will go one.
“Learn to change what?”, I ask and never get a reply. Or if I do, its something as vague and wooly a, ” Stop their elitist way of doing politics.” “Stop being negative”.
Politicians want to know what’s on people’s minds because they want to govern and do a good job, provide people with a stable economy and then give the people the changes they would like to see. It’s simple, really. No matter how cynical you are, the truth is that good politicians care a great deal about what people want because they are working to be given the position to give it to them. Even bad politicians, the ones who only care about votes, feel the same way, albeit in a much superficial way.
So when a person tells a politician that they expect change, but fall short of being in any way explicit about it, that person is lying.
This is what the PL started not so long ago, and what is now being carried on and repeated, like some sort of trump card to anything the PN do or say.
The result has been the PN going on some wild goose chase to find out what these changes may be, and how to implement them. They have been sweating blood, desperately trying to find out what changes are needed not only because they want to be a party that people can rely on again, but also because they have been faced with one subversive and machiavellian act after another for the past year and seen Malta’s reputation, the reputation they built, being destroyed.
The truth is, though, there is no “change”. The “change” these people talk of does not exist. This is all one giant shaggy-dog, a red herring, just to knock the PN off kilter long enough to keep them distracted and on the defensive.
This is all very manipulative and abusive. Yes, abusive, because actually the PN have a very deep emotional connection with Malta seeing as most of those in the top ranks at the moment risked life and limb, quite literally, for it during the golden years, and the PL are abusing of that love and respect.
The odious use of the word elitist just belies the ignorance of those who use it. The PN are not elitist, they are professional. The reason why the PL can’t ever do anything right is because they are not professional and not democratic, and that is a fact.
So if the PN are reading this, and I hope they are, I would tell them this: There is no band, so stop dancing to its tune. There is no change. Sure there were things that could be improved, but you never at any point subjected Malta to the level of shame that the PL have done. You won’t win over those who don’t care about democracy, but many of these switchers were vulnerable people who were afraid. Make them feel safe again by sticking to your guns.
Put a stop to this nonsense. Remind people of what they have said no to. Just because Muscat acts like he knows something, doesn’t mean that there actually is something to know.
Negative is not a value or a characteristic. It is a factual term used to describe the outcome of a test, or the structure of a sentence, or the attraction of an atom. Challenge Muscat on what he means by the word negative and why it is so important. The word negative was never synonymous with the word sin, so what’s so wrong with it now? I am sure his reply would surprise you and work in the PN’s favour.
The PL have made the PN redundant by copying their policies. Labour aren’t socialist. Nothing has changed. Just be grateful Labour aren’t socialist anymore.
Edward, Yes, up to the last paragraph.
Negative is a value they are consciously working with.
A benefit, idea, concept, direction, flavour is assessed for its positive and negative SET of values.
There is a high positive impact and a low positive impact.
There is a high negative impact and a low negative impact.
The weighting is given from plus 1 to plus 4 for the positive values and from minus 1 to minus 4 for the negative values.
This weighting is not a precision calculation: it is a gut instinct. Precisely so, because – and here is the strong element in the method – there are values which exist in a mix which are not normally named. This exercise gives the opportunity to notice, identify, name and recognise (a progression) these values.
They know ALL about how this is done.
Edward de Bono wrote “Six Value Medals” – it’s all in there.
Shiv Nair and his team (Mrs Patricia Hills – aka Paddy Hills and Mr Richard Hills – aka Dick Hills – of Shiv Nair’s London address at 135, Holland Park Avenue) are perfectly versed in wrestling positive with negative.
It always depends on the reader to add depth to the content.
How much background information is available?
Once you recognise the application, it can no longer remain a superficial read.
In this case, evil is not random.
It has been long studied and readied.
The sets of daggers going for their respective kill.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-07-18/news/marlene-farrugia-snubs-enemalta-vote-over-lack-of-relevant-documents-5886181378/
So judges can be appointed by the cabinet but their removal requires two thirds parliamentary majority?
[Daphne – Exactly.]
Such watertight logic, this Republic of ours.
Bonello/s mistake is/was accepting the baited hook that Muscat dangled in front of him. I cannot understand how people of such standing allow themselves to be used
The propensity of this government to say one thing and then do the opposite has been glaring from the very first day. I would say that it is worse than in the days of Mintoff, I mean Dom Mintoff.
Daphne,
Please stop being negative.
Let’s instead talk about the fact that nominations for Gieh ir-Repubblika should be sent to the Office of the Prime Minister up to 12 August. Obviously the nominees must be people who have “distinguished themselves in different walks of life and whose contribution and achievement enrich the general well-being of their fellow countrymen”.
Start listing your dictators and Taghna Lkollers now.
I told you so, too.
I had proposed that Judge Bonello should resign as early as April 2013 – must be within a month he was appointed.
“I expect Judge Bonello to tender his resignation immediately.”
At that time, the Labour government was proposing the removal of prescription on the crime of corruption by persons in public service, while Judge Bonello, who argues for the supremacy of the Constitution, had raised questions in public on the effect of such measure on human rights.
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/04/konrad-mizzi-still-thinks-tonio-fenech-is-the-man-responsible-for-energy/
I had also commented about Labour using Judge Bonello’s name.
“By accepting that Justice Reform position, Giovanni Bonello has allowed them to gag him and also to acquire his great, good name to bolster their poor credibility.
He is more than capable of doing the job, but I somehow don’t think they are at all interested in whether he does it or not. All they wanted was his name on board their bandwagon. Now that they have got that, they are not really interested in whether or what he delivers.
Justice reform? The first opportunity they have to deliver justice, they turn all principles upside down and deliver a frame-up instead.”
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/08/what-scum-and-by-this-i-mean-not-just-the-police-commissioner-but-also-malta-today-which-appears-delighted-to-see-justice-undone/
And now we have this.
Is Judge Bonello still part of the commission for the reform of justice? At this point, in his position, I would gladly pass the baton to Francock Debono.
I hope we won’t get another Freisler
This reflects the pathetic quality of so many of the political decisions taken in this country.
Never forget that this affects both parties, vide the appointment of Robert Mangion from village lawyer to judge on the eve of the election for example….