Lies and credibility
A magistrate who lies and cheats undermines his or her own credibility. Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera is by definition a liar and a cheat, and no number of police reports or other forms of threat or intimidation can obscure this undeniable truth.
She lied to her husband and to the father of her children not once or twice but for a prolonged, sustained period during which she cheated on him.
She did not meet Robert Musumeci on Monday and leave her husband on Tuesday. There was a long period of lying and cheating in between.
Somebody who lies to and cheats on a spouse and fellow parent on a sustained basis and to such a serious degree is capable of lying to and cheating anyone else. This is not a drunken one-night stand we are talking about here.
Once you have crossed the psychological and moral barrier of cheating the person supposedly closest to you, the person with whom you have had and are still raising children, then all other lies and cheating are chickenfeed.
This is the fundamental principle which underpins the resignations of politicians in other parts of the world with stronger media, when it is revealed that they have been lying to their spouse about an affair.
It is assumed that the politician who is capable of lying to his spouse and children is more than capable of lying to his electors.
Magistrates and judges are no different. Indeed, evidence that they have lied – and lies to a spouse are lies above all – should be taken far more seriously than evidence that a politician has lied.
A politician can be removed by the electorate. A judge or a magistrate can be removed only by an impeachment motion in parliament, with the votes of two-thirds of MPs. This means that liars and cheats like Magistrate Scerri Herrera have effective security of tenure unless they resign of their own volition.
Noel Arrigo and Patrick Vella could have stayed on as judges until they were sentenced, had they been bloody-minded enough to do so. Nothing could have stopped them. The supremely defiant Arrigo actually considered it, until good counsel prevailed.
The reality is that all who come before Consuelo Scerri Herrera’s court are at the mercy of a proven liar and cheat. A fool might argue that lies told consistently to one’s spouse are different to other sorts of lies. But they are not. Some would say that they are the worst lies of all.
This is one of the essential points at issue here.
And then, of course, we have the question of blackmail. I knew long before the magistrate’s husband did, long before Mrs Musumeci did, that the two were having a clandestine affair. And believe me, if I knew and we are not the best of friends (that’s an understatement), you can rest assured that many others knew too.
This left the magistrate fully exposed to blackmail. If I had been that kind of lowlife, dishonest scum, I could have rung her and said: “Look here, if you don’t give a decision in my favour in that libel suit, you’re going to wake up tomorrow to find that I’ve announced to the nation and to your spouses via my blog that you’re having it off with Robert Musumeci when you’re supposed to be out on an inkjesta.”
I’m not that kind of lowlife scum. I don’t do blackmail and while I didn’t give a damn about Consuelo Herrera I certainly cared a great deal about the feelings of the unsuspecting and perfectly decent spouses involved.
But the islands are teeming with lowlife scum who are not impartial to a bit of blackmail. They might not have had the same scruples about the matter that I did and still do.
The clandestine affair exposed Robert Musumeci to blackmail, too, but that’s a different story.
It also laid the Nationalist Party wide open to serious problems, to accusations of sleaze and to the sort of embarrassment that Musumeci has caused it over the last couple of years. They should have got rid of him the moment they found out he was cheating on his wife.
When it was announced in February 2008 that Musumeci would stand for the general election on the Nationalist Party ticket, I rang a couple of people and raised hell.
“Some partit tal-valuri,” I said, “when you accept as a candidate a man who is currently cheating on his wife, and what’s more, cheating on her with a magistrate who’s cheating on her husband and – talk about Trojan horses – who parties with Super One’s Charlon Gouder and whose brother is a Labour politician.”
Two years down the line, I now have a completely different perspective on just who might have fed the Labour Party that story about Robert Musumeci’s friend, Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.
I have the same sort of perspective on just who might have hung Robert Musumeci’s client, PN president Victor Scerri, up to dry.
It turned out that the party machinery had discovered the affair after Musumeci had been accepted as a candidate, and didn’t want to create a scandal during the electoral tension by having him deselected immediately.
I pointed out that there would be no scandal by having him deselected. After all, Super One and the rest of the Labour media crowd were hardly likely to make a major story out of the fact that Robert Musumeci was cheating on his wife, not when the person he was cheating with was Jose Herrera’s sister and a close friend of Charlon Gouder.
On the other hand, I said, protecting him now would allow him to feel protected at any point, and that this would be the start of a long, sleazy road downhill – a sleazy road that would eventually blow up in everyone’s face.
I also said – very loudly, as I recall – that it was completely dishonest to present to the electorate for its votes a man whom the electorate did not know to be an adulterous cheat. The Nationalist Party, I remarked at the top of my voice, is a brand with certain brand values, and one of those brand values is common decency. Candidates stamped with the PN brand are expected by the electorate to have passed stringent tests of decency and not be adulterers currently cheating on their spouses.
I must say, that went down very well. In the middle of a fraught electoral campaign, they were words of advice that fell into a deep, black hole.
By protecting Robert Musumeci during the general election, the Nationalist Party created a major problem for itself and for the country. Retaining him as a candidate when he was cheating on his wife was a serious dereliction and the result was inevitable.
The same applies to his girlfriend. We cannot have magistrates and judges who lie, whoever they may lie to. One magistrate who lies brings the whole system into disrepute if he or she is allowed to carry on in that position.
The perception is that people who lie once will do it again. Members of the public stand before the magistrate and tell themselves: “If she lied to her husband for so long, what’s to stop her lying to me?”
That’s the sort of thing that truly undermines faith in the judiciary.
It is no coincidence that Noel Arrigo, too, had notorious issues of marital fidelity, but we won’t say who with because then the Labour Party’s business forum will have problems. Arrigo lied to his wife, a very respectable and much admired woman who deserves every tribute she can get, and he lied to the country.
John Rizzo is police commissioner today only because his predecessor lied to his wife and was exposed as having done so. He resigned after the story broke that he was having a clandestine affair with a woman who, with hindsight, was almost certainly a classic honey-trap.
He resigned not because adultery is a crime, or because he doesn’t have a right to a private life. He resigned because he was a public officer in one of the highest positions of public trust – a police commissioner – and he had told not one lie but a whole series of them, to his very respectable and decent wife. In doing so, he lost his moral authority.
The supreme irony is that it was Malta Today who hounded the police commissioner over that affair and broke the story. But on Magistrate Herrera’s affair with Robert Musumeci, it maintained a discreet silence.
Yet a magistrate is in a position of public trust as great as that of a police commissioner, if not more so. A magistrate who lies to her husband is possibly worse than a police commissioner who lies to his wife.
A police commissioner can be made to go. A magistrate cannot be made to go, no matter how many lies he or she tells.
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If I ever, God forbid, had to come up in front of her, I’d like to look her in the eye and stare her out, when I’m being asked to swear ”to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God”. Vera m’ghandiex zejt f’wicca, or anywhere else for that matter.
In all honesty, Daphne, your post above should be tonight’s compulsory bed-time reading for our political leaders, both actual and those aspiring to be. They should thank you for making their job so easy for them.
Very well said Daphne …. you are 200% right!
Well done, keep it up – we support you.
John Edwards, a former U. S. presidential candidate comes immediately to mind: lied, cheated on a wife stricken with cancer, fathered a love child, denied it then recanted, now doing ‘missionary’ work.
The missionary’s mission statement:
http://blog.niot.net/blog-images/john-edwards-hears-it-from-jason-vines.jpg
Woods and Terry got the boot while Consie plays the victim role and wants to censor Malta’s best columnist. Insane.
‘but we won’t say who with because then the Labour Party’s business forum will have problems’
kif qieghda fiz-zifna…ghidilna min
@ASP
re your query, it’s the one who very often looks like the top of a Xmas tree, red n’ all !
@ ASP
Jekk int familjari ta toroq tal-Belt ma kienx daqshekk difficli biex tinduna.
ASP
“kif qieghda fiz-zifna…ghidilna min”
No, no, it might sink Labour’s flagship.
John Terry has been stripped of the England captaincy following allegations about his private life.
Terry, 29, was under intense scrutiny after claims he had an affair with an England team-mate’s ex-girlfriend.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/8495604.stm
Perhaps a more suitable story would be Baroness Scotland’s, the UK’s Attorney General. Her housemaid overstayed her visa. The media demanded the Baroness’ resignation. A government minister said her position was “untenable”; another resigned in protest for not being sacked. In the end, Patricia Scotland had to make a grovelling apology.
You’re either totally insane or heroically courageous. This article just goes to show what a woman of principle you are. You’re prepared to risk bringing the government down and letting the MLP/PL in 3 years early, not to mention possible prosecution and maybe even a prison sentence but you still stand up for the truth.
Tu es magnifique!
@ Tim Ripard
Courage is often equated with insanity/stupidity.
However, nota bene:
1. “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” (Vincent van Gogh)
2. “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” (Winston Churchill)
No further comment necessary
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/8495604.stm
Many of our politicians and public officers should print out the above post and keep a copy of it in their wallet.
If Commissioner of Police George Grech resigned for having an affair, so should Consuelo Scerri Herrera.
http://www.speedingtickets.com.au/speeding-tickets-articles/2009/6/26/disgraced-magistrate-randazzo-will-resign/
I’d surely get an A in all my exams if I read my notes the same way I read your blog!
It is a good eye opener as to what really goes on in this country (and all the behind-the-scene affairs).
Keep up the good work, love the way you write!
A key quality sought in would-be magistrates.
• Good character
Personal integrity – respect and trust of others – respect for confidences – absence of any matter which might bring them or the Magistracy into disrepute – willingness to be circumspect in private, working and public life.
Consie u n-nies ta’ madwarha ghandhom jitnehhew mill-karigi taghhom ghaliex ma jaghmlux gieh lil pajjizna.
Nies bhal dawn li huma bla skrupli ma ghandhomx ikollhom l-poter li jiggudikaw nies li kultant ikunu ta’ kuxjenza ahjar minn taghhom!
Carry on, Daphne! Imnalla tkun int biex insir naf xi haga zghira dwar dak li qed jigri fil-pajjiz!
Sorry, D, but you totally lost me on the Noel Arrigo and Labour Business forum thing. What s the connection? Wasn’t the Forum only just set up recently, when Arrigo has already been sentenced? Please enlighten, or at least prod, us who might not be so au courant of these matters?
I’ve been reading this with interest. If this lady was a magistrate in England I’m sure she would step down, if only to spare her family from more embarrassment. I love reading your notebook, Daphne.
Prosit Daphne, naqbel mieghek perfettament. Kif nistghu nitkellmu dwar valuri meta nies li jokkupaw l-ghola karigi fil-pajjiz jaggixxu b’dan il-mod? Nisma hafna nies igergru li f’Malta m’hawnx gustizzja u nipprova nghaddi l-messagg li la ma nifmux fil-ligi ma nistghux nitkellmu b’dan il-mod. Imma wara dak kollu li gara dan l-ahhar nahseb li cikku l-poplu ghandu “naqra ragun” meta jghid li jghid. Nispera li l–awtoritajiet kompetenti jaraw x’jistghu jaghmlu biex jirrimedjaw is-sitwazzjoni.
To add insult to injury, and further problems to the PN leadership, Mr. Musumeci now has a good chance of being elected to Parliament. Hmmm… and what will happen then?
This reminds me of the Best of English humour – Carry On……Court or Justice!!
Only this is very serious.
Can we go on like this?
I am sure that our honourable people can find a way out for all honest citizens
All of you think seem to think that Consie needs to go. Fair enough, this is a good start for people in public office to be held responsible. But what about the rest of the things happening around us ?
Have you considered what should happen to the “people” who choose the new power plant? I do not want to mix issues here, but let’s put things into perspective. Here we have a judge who fooled around and got caught – for me that is wrong. What about someone who will cause Maltese residents in the south more cancer, more asthma , more sea pollution, tons of waste of which we are not sure how to get rid of, for generations to come. Why? Have they chosen one of the most polluting options they had?
So if Consie goes over a love affair. I think the people who choose a polluting power station extension over a more clean reason being their “wallet” over the health of us Maltese should be …………… (put in what ever you think a good punishment is here, NO just leaving office is too lenient)
It is OK to steal money from the public coffers (Maltese have been accepting this for a long time now) to kill slowly or not, should not be tolerated.
Dave, if we let ‘the people’ chose the right capital projects we will end up with no projects. The power plant’s location is less harmful at Dellimara than at Marsa which has to close down thanks to the EU regulations.The inner harbour area which is highly populated will benefit from the removal of the Marsa power station. Running the power station on natural gas is clean but also costly.
Technical issues should not be decided by laymen. We have been through this in the Sant Antnin project and the new power station at Dellimara.
Please observe that the prevailing wind in Malta is North West, from Marsa to Fgura which is from Delimara to the sea.
Dave: Consuelo Herrera is not being criticised over a love affair. Still less is she ‘being made to go’.
The implication of that ‘love affair’ you mention is the weakening of credibility in her judgement. And that’s to say nothing of the implications of all the other shenanigans.
I am not that keen in ‘watching’ a fight between two persons, what I’m interested in is the ‘fallout’ of the said fight which concerns the political class, the judiciary, the executive (police) and our so-called journalists. It seems that priests were personae non grate in these parties.
In an ideal democracy people who are part of these entities should keep away from each other not party together like twenty-year-olds till the small hours of the morning.
Is there any form of petition where I can show my concern as a Maltese citizen about this case?
John Schembri: You could start a petition yourself.
The last two articles are excellent both in content and style and would have served their purpose as much as the previous ones. I believe that you would be appreciated by a wider readership if you adopted the former style more often. Here’s hoping that the magistrate resigns or is impeached and that you don’t suffer any consequences.
A magistrate cannot be made to go, no matter how many lies he or she tells. Correct, however, if all our lawmakers do the right thing it can happen. Right? Would it not make an interesting debate!
John Terry has been stripped of his England team captaincy after revelations about his personal life began to emerge -an alleged affair with the former partner of the English teammate Wayne Bridge. This gives credit to your arguments that the personal and the public are intertwined. In places where these matters are taken seriously, the person concerned has to resign or is made to resign. Even in football there are ethics to be observed let alone in the law courts.
I have been following this blog’s critical review of Magistrate Herrera since the first piece was posted. Throughout, there were times when I felt that the magistrate was being pilloried excessively and that some of the allegations, unless they can be substantiated, should not have been made.
The essential point that Daphne makes however, that the Magistrate’s choices and actions in her personal life made carrying out the duties of her office vulnerable to blackmail, is entirely valid.
I think she was right to make it and, in my view, the magistrate should now consider her position.
“The essential point that Daphne makes however, that the Magistrate’s choices and actions in her personal life made carrying out the duties of her office vulnerable to blackmail, is entirely valid.
I think she was right to make it and, in my view, the magistrate should now consider her position.”
Thank you, Georg. Sadly, not everyone has the guts to openly agree with Daphne, for fear of how it may affect them personally, for fear of retribution.
Such people do not realise that their silence is only tacit approval – and by that, I do not mean tacit approval of what Daphne has written. Anyway, you know what I mean.
“the Magistrate’s choices and actions in her personal life made carrying out the duties of her office vulnerable to blackmail”
Too true. It’s the *possibility* of blackmail that’s the point here. That possibility stands, regardless of whether it’s ever occurred so far. Could we be sure that the magistrate would call in the police if she were ever threatened with blackmail? More to the point, what guarantee is there that the police themselves are immune to blackmail in relation to this matter?
Her private life is her own, what is your problem?
You just have nothing better to do with your time
What happens as a result of that ‘private’ life is everyone’s business.
Apparently it’s yours too. See? Even you felt you had to say something about it.
A public person’s private life remains private up to a limit.
One would not be interested in, for example, whether or not a politician/magistrate/police officer- is having a picnic on a beach with his/her children.
If, on the other hand, that same person is behaving inappropriately on a beach with some bit-on-the side, risking themselves being exposed to blackmail, then yes, the public has every right to know.
The above example is purely hypotethical, and has been given only to make things a little more clear for you, since you obviously fail to grasp the situation.