Twenty five years of Nationalist administration have become as nothing.  Safe to say, we're back where we were in the 1970s and 1980s, re-living the same grievances and injustices.  Like a virus which lay dormant in our system, now active again, only the treatment is slightly different nowadays.

Apparently not everyone is allowed to have the same treatment.  The diagnosis is clear, the patients are known, but the medicine is available only to those who qualify.  Who qualifies depends very much on favour and grace.

Government has been taken to task by the Attorney General about its handling of the Premier case.  Without entering into the morality of it and the actual interests at play, we can only draw reference to so many other cases these days to where owners who have been deprived of their property for what could amount to 150 years, are having to resort to buying out their own tenants, in an attempt to regain access to what is rightfully theirs.

I am referring to the rental law of 1979 instituted by Prime Minister Dom Mintoff which converted temporary emphyteusis agreements into contracts and  thereby took over people's property without regard or concern for their right of ownership. 

Over the years, nothing or little was done to rectify this unjust law and Maltese people being the resourceful and enterprising mind that they are, have come to circumvent the dire situation they find themselves in, having had no remedy that justly corrects this robbery, by resorting to pay outs. Unfair? Grossly unfair. 

Tenants taking even further advantage of the benefit of an anti-constitutional law?  Definitely. 

But please, let us not be shocked that the government paid out €4.2 million to the tenants of the Premier.  This is nothing more than the business generated by the system put in place by Labour and still in effect to this day. They know how to work the system, they watched to see what spoils would be left behind by the PN and they "advanced to "Go"". 

Of course, paying out the money from public funds, our taxes, is even more ironic and I can't imagine how it is allowed to happen at all, but like so much before it, it has indeed happened.

For the rest of the common people, we have to put up with having our property used as a Kazin tal- Labour, watch as Australia Hall is handed over to the Labour party and try to forget about the frog in our house.  Lands casually taken over and proprietors charged with building illegalities, now additionally come to benefit from the amnesty bonanza and the profits to ensue.

So, it would seem, in a very clever and conniving way, the law was created in order to give power to those who can manipulate it, rather than to serve the citizen.

They saw and they conquered.  Let us not have any doubt that those who switched and those who shout Viva Mintoff are at all displeased by such affairs.  When there will be an outcry from the man in the street, then we will have the start of solidarity and democracy.

The same, really, goes for the HSBC Geneva accounts belonging to various MPs or ex-MPs or high officials, receiving their amnesty.    Who can forget smuggling chocolate, cash and toothpaste through customs?  Once again, I do not condone this action, especially where the source of the funds is not known and the persons in question were themselves makers of laws.  Corruption belongs to those who perpetrate it.

However, it is no surprise that the opportunity arose now, just two years into the Labour Government, for such account holders to "adjust" their position.  Look anywhere Mintoff was - the environment, nationalisation of banks, expropriation of property, control of funds, the energy sector, commerce, social services and the list goes on, and you have a nice fat nest to exploit.

More symptoms of the disease show up around us.  The cry these days is that government should lead by example.  It is being used a lot.  There is the alleged case of the Hon. Justyne Caruana and her rant to staff at SVP, seen as bullying and totally against protocol and modern methods of management.  Then we have the Hon. Helena Dalli's farmhouse across the street but on an ODZ zone hoping for sanction.  The lovely Monti in Ordnance Street, the kiosks around Valletta's squares that appear from festival to festival. Leasing your own car to yourself.  Appointing ministers on boards and directorships allowing for two or three more incomes, jobs of so called positions of trust, questionable promotions and we have a piece of lace so brilliantly crafted that even the Gozitans say prosit.

Over in the UK Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind offered to use their positions as politicians on behalf of a fictitious Chinese company in return for payments of at least £5,000 per day.

Some opinionists comment that the truth is that these two men are not the problem. They are not even the worst symptom of the problem. They maintain that suspending Jack Straw and stripping Malcolm Rifkind of his ISC chairmanship will do absolutely nothing to dent the ongoing scandal of cash for access in parliament.

Here in Malta it is the reverse problem we face:  Restitution for Pundits.  It does not have to be cash (although cash is often the product of it)  but can take the form of permits, new laws, arrangements, favours, and other such restitution.  And nobody needs to pay to have access because you are actually called in from above to receive the offer.  Manuel Mallia described how he was courted by Joseph Muscat prior to standing for Labour and the Malta Development Association's ambitions were well entertained in certain quarters even before the election.

The only hope remaining is that the glaring imbalance of restitution is now so clear, that a correction is badly needed to keep the pendulum from going right off its hinge.  And let us hope that this does not take the form of a lawless society, where everything is up for grabs, but that remedies will be pursued which go to the heart of the matter and offer some sign of humility towards the honest working people, victims of decades of fraud and abuse. 

Actually working towards solving the problems facing the country, such as in the longer term economy, security, energy and health, would also be an overdue relief.