The child abuse/sex crimes investigations in Britain right now are in themselves turning into a travesty of justice, with dead politicians like the Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath subjected to intense scrutiny when they are not in a position to defend themselves (nothing you can do about that; they're dead) and now, an 86-year-old former Labour MP, Greville Janner, has been put on trial even though his Alzheimer's disease is so advanced that he has no idea what is happening. anner was pronounced not fit to stand trial - you would think that would be obvious - but after his victims expressed outrage, that decision was reversed. This is irrational thinking at its worst. You cannot serve justice by committing another injustice. Regardless of what his victims say and irrespective of what was done to them (and my regular readers will already know my views about that sort of thing), a man who is unable to defend himself because of acute dementia should not be put on trial. For the purposes of justice, his victims and the system should consider him dead. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from subjecting somebody in this state to trial. His victims will not even be able to claim closure or satisfaction that justice was served, because much of that closure and satisfaction comes from the knowledge that the perpetrator knows he has been found guilty and is being punished by society. Janner is not capable of knowing that. When he was hauled to court, he wore a badly soiled cardigan and was heard saying, when brought in, "Ooooh, how wonderful to be here." No civilised person can possibly be comfortable with that situation.
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The liberalism of the Labour government continues, with backbencher Etienne Grech ranting and raving against immigrants, on Facebook - where else, given that we're talking about people who are literally incapable of expressing themselves in a more appropriate context where proper syntax is required. What provoked his outburst? It was the fact that a newspaper reported how two security men at a fast-food restaurant, who manhandled a customer, were "of Arabic extraction". Given that practically all Maltese are of Arabic extraction (define 'Arabic') in one way or another somewhere down the line, I thought that description particularly fascinating. I also wondered, though ever so briefly, whether the Labour MP reacts in the same way to the many incidents of club and bar patrons being assaulted by Maltese bouncers. I seem to recall, some years ago, a man of "Arabic extraction" dying after bouncers at a Paceville all-night restaurant literally threw him out and his head hit the pavement. He never recovered consciousness. I also recall a Maltese bouncer breaking a young Maltese man's jaw far more recently. An off-duty soldier with the Armed Forces of Malta, called Stephen Ciangura, now doing duty as official chauffeur to Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, chairman of the Malta Council for Science and Technology, was prosecuted for that crime. Three years ago, the judge pronounced him not guilty - or rather, said that she could not declare him guilty - because of inconsistencies in testimony.Etienne Grech's view is that immigrants are savages who are alien to our culture and who, instead of fitting in with the rest of us (who, presumably, he considers not to be savages who rough up club patrons) they will insist on speaking their own language and demanding more of their annoying little mosques. Perhaps he expects them to become Roman Catholics, despite what the Maltese Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights say about freedom of worship? Or maybe he thinks that an island with several hundred Catholic churches cannot possibly find the space for another mosque, even though an Anglican cathedral dominates the skyline of our Roman Catholic capital city.
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It is most distressing that our head of state received, and was photographed with, a politician suspected of the murder of a rival and of the disappearance of a journalist in his own country last year. Marie Louise Coleiro Preca a few days ago received at the Palace Ahmed Adeeb, vice-president of the Maldives. Ibrahim Lutfy, a Maldivian activist who served time in prison for his political views, and who is now living in Switzerland, has objected most strongly to this, speaking to the press in Malta and raising awareness on social media about the fact that Adeeb is a prime suspect in the murder in 2012 of Member of Parliament Afraahseem Ali and the disappearance of Ahmed Rilwan, a journalist who is now presumed dead, last year. These are difficult situations to deal with from a protocol point of view. After all, Muammar Gaddafi murdered or commissioned the murder of hundreds if not thousands of people and still he was received warmly and with great aplomb. But I still think there has got to be some morality at work here.