No, Claude – politicians’ friends, relatives and cronies should be eligible only if there is a competitive selection process and there can be no doubt in the public’s mind that they hold the position on merit.

Without that competitive selection process, politicians’ friends, relatives and cronies should not be considered, let alone be the sole appointees, because then it is nothing but corrupt cronyism.

The main reason for appointing a magistrate should only be their ability to do the job properly and that they have the experience necessary. And in this regard I’m with you that the PN and the leader of the opposition are using the wrong tack, if the only issue is the timing then the government can just delay the appointment by a couple of months and the argument is defeated.

If on the other hand the issue is competence and the probability that other more capable people have been sidelined to make way for these two people then the dates are irrelevant. The PN would also do well to make their own suggestions as to who they would have chosen. The comparison should make the choice even more ridiculous.

Then what you are saying implies that Joseph Muscat proposed this nomination knowing fully well that the President did not have a leg to stand on. That goes beyond #badpeople.

Your last paragraph merits an in-depth investigation by a good investigative journalist.

Don’t be coy. You know exactly what I mean and we’re all waiting breathlessly for your first chapter.

Her’s your synopsis: a woman divests herself of the moral and consitutional responsibility to refuse the nomination of her former flame’s daughter to the judiciary by referring the nomination to a commission which she herself chairs.

Not people’s emotions, but the Republic. The common good.

Because we all know how this will play out. Some commission will find that the Constitution has not been violated, Marie-Louise The Righteous will out her signature on the documents, and the Speaker’s daughter will be made a magistrate. Move along, nothing to see here.

Ditto for the absurd Gaffarena court case.

Had this been the case, though clearly it is not, by far, the one and only way for her to be given the prominent and delicate appointment of magistrate would have been for Anglu Farrugia to bow out of politics completely.