Well, he always struck me as a bit of an Italianate fascist
Manuel Mallia has found some bargain drugs tests at Lidl and plans to use them.
Police, Army and Films minister Manuel Mallia has taken a break from appointing naked men to the Film Commission and entertaining in his office the man who stabbed PM Fenech Adami’s aide, and given instructions for prison warders to be subjected to mandatory and involuntary drugs tests.
When I read this, I thought how can this man be allowed to get away with something like that? Where is their union and a good civil liberties lawyer when you need one?
Mandatory drugs tests right across the board? For heaven’s sake – where are living.
Since the news broke, Manuel Mallia has felt the need to justify his fascist order. His spokesman said that the rules of the job ban prison warders from “taking part in any activity likely to interfere with impartial discharge of (their) duty or which may give rise to the impression among the public that it may so interfere”.
He’s a lawyer. He should know that this means if a warder is caught taking/selling illegal drugs, then he’s fired. But that’s the case with most jobs, and it does not give employers the right to force their employees into taking mandatory drugs tests.
Using this kind of twisted reasoning, Manuel Mallia might as well put a tracking device on his prison warders and bug their homes and cars, to make sure they’re not disgracing themselves with the public.
Given that those other people stuffed into his bulging portfolio – the police and the army – aren’t allowed to take illegal drugs either (is anybody?), then by extension, what he has demanded of the prison warders he should also demand of them.
The reality is that nobody should be subjected to mandatory tests like those. It’s disgusting and invasive. If there are any grounds at all for subjecting a prison warder to a drugs test, it is on the basis of REASONABLE SUSPICION that he/she has a drug habit. But even there, it’s touch and go.
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By the same token, all criminal lawyers should be subjected to drugs tests in case they’re taking anything that could compromise them, or send of the rails when they feel their genius has been overlooked.
Heck just make it an IQ test to be able to vote and all Malta’s problems would be solved.
How about we subject HIM to a mandatory financial audit?
There are employers (Maltese) who subject their employees to such tests and screening by the Malta Standards Authority.
The thing is that one particular owner of a security(sic) company was caught with his finger in the pie in one of Malta’s scandals in the early nineties and his daughter director is most probably a drug addict.
So there you go, if employers can do it why not Minister Mallia.
I am not contrary to such policies when members of the army, police, civil protection, traffic wardens and prison wardens are concerned. Testing for substance abuse is a run of the mill exercise with foreign armed forces.
Take as an example the US army where by regulation, each soldier on active duty is to be tested randomly once per year. Such tests are separate and distinct from additional screening where other regular medical tests may be carried out, or where there is the existence of probable cause to test. The following link explains in more detail: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/theorderlyroom/l/bldrugtests.htm
I feel very strongly about the drug problem in Malta. If this problem has been institutionalised to the extent that the members of our forces of law and order cannot be beyond reproach, then what hope do our children have?
As far as I am concerned, this is a step in the right direction and our prison should serve as a correctional facility, not a place where addiction is nourished. If we cannot control this problem in a place as small as our prison (with all its inherent problems), then what hope do we really have of combating the drug problem on our streets.
But let’s go beyond simply testing the army, police, civil protection, traffic wardens and prison wardens. Let’s also have our MPs discard their parliamentary privilege by subjecting themselves to random drug tests, with the results (being in the public interest) made public. We might be in for a few surprises.
Somewhere out there, the big fish are swimming safely in the knowledge that they are well protected.
What has Italianate got to do with this? Can’t ‘fascist’ stand alone here?
[Daphne – Definitely not. Listen to him speak. In Malta, a preference for ‘Italian culture’ (Maltese interpretation of) goes hand in hand with Far Right views and an inability to understand what democracy is for.]
I had never noticed. Yes, I have noticed that the likes of Malta’s official far-right party admire Mussolini and indeed imitate him in speech and style, but if anything my experience of the PL is that they still retain the disdain they traditionally had for the Italians due to the PN’s Italian cultural connection and the elitism they attribute to it.
I am with Baxxter on this one where he says that the PL is similar to Nasserism. A lot of the fascists in Malta either seem BNP style or alternatively make reference to some distant Phoenician connection to which in reality there is no link.
@ albona’s first comment about the ‘experience of the PL’s disdain of the Italians due to the PN’s Italian cultural connection.’
This is interesting because it touches on the historical-ideological development of the two political parties.
The PN’s connection with Italian/Mediterranean culture is a continuation of a long line of historical search for national identity in a context of colonial rule.
The (M)LP’s and its ancestors’ association with British ‘culture’ was one of convenience. Again, in Malta’s colonial context, the two politico-ideological questions were: Freedom or Survival?
Perpetuating the myth that the PN is pro-Italy while the (M)LP is pro-Britain is in today’s political context not only superficial but most anachronistic, especially in view of the stereotypes associated with Italians and Britons in the ‘global’ mind.
It’s something to get rid of.
Even because there’s so much to learn from their mistakes. The south, insularity, the paganistic social rituals linked to externalisation of the faith, approximation reducing verbalised thought to simple gut feeling, superbia, I could go on.
People like Mallia, Lowell and Meli make me sick. They’ll keep at it for their own suprematic instincts. The fact we don’t have a left but remnants of realsocialist axioms mixed with dogmatic method doesn’t help.
Otherwise how does one explain the misplaced ideas, allergy to simple discourse and plain bad taste? It’s a taboo that has to be broken.
Sometimes I sincerely think this preconcept keeps some form of status quo. A caricature of Italy’s cliches transposed onto us, these loonies endorsing it to play along.
I cannot count the number of times I had to explain why voting Nationalist didn’t make me some Karazic.
With the exception of tyrannical states that deem the ‘war on drugs’ essential to sustain draconian laws aimed at social AND political control, everywhere in the world this false ‘war’ is being downsized and largely abandoned, with more countries decriminalising use, de facto or officially, and with Uruguay even going as far as to legalise and regulate the drugs market nationally.
Meanwhile, the Maltese government is emulating the tyrannical states with a purpose in mind that is not only self-defeating, but that was falsely rationalised by despots in the first place.
I may respect Dr Mallia as an acquaintance from a past era of mine, but these actions are distasteful, ineffectual and reflective of a policy that is bound not only to fail, but to perpetuate social harm and misery.
Aqraw ktieb sura, f’gieh zaqqkom, kemm bqajtu qodma.
Ahleb, Guz! Issa ghandna il-Ministru tal-Pipi Kriminuz!
How about we drug test our MPs?
Now THAT would be interesting.
I was also shocked when I heard this news.
At this point, we need to start asking whether Manuel Mallia is carrying out a systematic attack on prison warders.
First he tried to catch them skiving and now he’s getting them tested for drugs.
Granted, warders should neither skive nor take drugs, but that doesn’t mean that their rights can be violated at will.
They should refuse to take the tests and get a lawyer or union to speak up for them if Manuel Mallia insists.
It always looks like Mallia always picks on the prison wardens, a sort of payback ‘revenge’.
After all, they are in charge of his clients.
Not as clear cut as it seems.
The question was raised in the European Court of Human Right as to whether random compulsory testing of crew members on board ships for drugs and alcohol, was a violation of the right to privacy.
The ECHR found the complaint by a crew member to be inadmissible. Although the testing amounted to an interference with the right to privacy, this interference was justifiable in the interests of public safety and the protection of the rights of others.
See Admissibility decision, Madsen v. Denmark, 7 November 2002.
A warder in a prison and a crew member on a ship are not in exactly the same position, but I believe the same reasoning could apply.
The job of a prison warder is to take care of the prisoners. If the warder is drugged he is not in a position to carry out his job well.
While I disagree on the way that the warders were tested for drugs, on the other hand the minister is responsible for his employees.
What if a nurse or doctor who looks after patients is found to be under the effect of drugs? Do you want to be looked after by such people?
[Daphne – The mistake you make is to start off from the point where prison warders are the employees of the Police/Prisons Minister. They are not. Ministers are there to make and implement policy. They do not administer operations. There are permanent state officials (as distinct from elected politicians) for that purpose.]