That the interests of the Maltese consumer are well protected is just a fairy tale. In many cases, protection amounts to zilch. This happens in part because quite a number of consumers have little to no understanding of what their rights actually are or what they should be; in part because the mechanisms put in place to defend them have remained very bureaucratic, can be long drawn out easily, and they load onto consumers the best chunk of the discomfort that inevitably ensues while one tries to seek enforcement of one’s rights.
In the private sector, this serious deficiency of our society is felt in the construction sector (despite the sweet messages that it has been promoting); the food and entertainment industry; as well as in professional services, plus the repair of cars and domestic appliances.
Public entities hardly trail the private sector on this count: as at the courts; or at ARMS which abuses its monopoly position to shift the cost of inefficiencies in its operations onto consumers; or for certain services provided by local councils.
It used to be claimed that with Malta’s membership of the EU the situation regarding the effective implementation of consumers’ rights would change overnight. Not any more.
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Out of Libya
The arguments being made in criticism of NGOs which are endeavouring to save “irregular” migrants coming out of Libya from drowning, cannot just be ignored or ridiculed.
How is it possible to doubt that their interventions may be serving to encourage some people traffickers to expand their trade? How can it be ensured that there is no acquiescence... not to say some “hidden” collaboration... between sundry members of NGO outfits and “friends” of smugglers?
Admittedly in Italy – which after all is the country most affected by the surge of migration out of Libya – some exaggerated claims have been made against NGO “rescue” operations. But meanwhile, many of the objections that were made are quite valid. They still need to elicit serious, firm and humane responses.
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Monuments
Following the Charlottesville incidents, there has been a strong push in the US to remove all remaining public traces, by way of monuments and other memorials in the country, of the Confederacy that lost the American civil war more than a century and a half ago. I disagree that this is necessarily a good idea.
The member states of the Confederacy were in favour of slavery. Given today’s values criteria, their stand calls for a total condemnation. However, those who fought for the Confederacy had their own genuine appreciation of how life should be lived. To convert the memory of their existence into a perpetual shame – as is justly done for the Nazis – does not seem to me to be reasonable.
Perhaps it would be better if alongside all monuments commemorating the Confederacy, is placed some other memorial, big or small, that would seek to place it in context while asserting most strongly the condemnation of slavery and the commitment to full racial equality.
The problem is that as usual, with his personal input, President Trump has derailed all rational judgements about a tragic episode of US history.