It may be my impression but decorations for Christmas seem to have gone up earlier this year. They started to surface and become visible in the middle of November and this struck me as odd, though significant. People seem ready to start celebrating the jovial season – they seem to have had enough of 2017.
The first few months of the year were dominated by the Panama Papers and Malta hit the international press for all the wrong reasons. Then we had a bitterly fought election which ensured that the divisiveness of our country came to the fore, and afterwards we had a number of inquiries which to date have not been concluded and still kept people questioning the truth of all that was said, alleged and defended.
In early October, Malta was rocked by the news of the barbaric assassination of leading journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia. Still reeling from this shocking occurrence, parts of civil society got together to form the Civil Network Society. Today they will lead people back to the streets with another national protest in the presence of leading Italian politician and former prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro, an icon for the rule of law.
If things were not so dramatic, we should all be looking forward to the festive season after a long drawn-out year. There is a lot of rebuilding which is necessary, and if we go forward without investing in rebuilding, it will come back to haunt us.
There is a sense of superficiality still going on in this country. My reading of the next concert by the national orchestra, music favoured by the Prime Minister, baffled me no end. Are those responsible for its organisation and choice of theme so trivial, or are they so under the impression that this is a dictatorial democracy that they have to pay lip service to the Prime Minister in this manner? Surely this could not have been warranted by the Prime Minister to deviate attention from the serious problems we are facing by using such trivialities – he has more serious business to attend to.
The Government moves along with its daily business in this country, sidelining civil society’s voice and the ongoing protests for the rule of law to be upheld and the necessary changes to entrench and strengthen our young democracy to be effected.
Silence is golden and it takes maturity not to respond to provocation. When matters are raised which require attention, speaking out to build blocks in the democratic structure in society is not only expected but also obligatory. This goes for all institutions in society, but even more so for the government. The proposed overdue amendments to essential roles forming part of the backbone of our democracy will happen – it is only a question of when and I predict that it will be in the short rather than the long term. However, to achieve this everyone has to voice their opinion and make it their mission to bring about change. If democracy plummets further, we will all be short-changed. I have already declared myself in favour of the nomination of these roles through a two-thirds majority. I do not agree with what has been written to the effect that our parliamentarians will never be in a position to support a nomination which carries the required qualified majority. I have more faith in our politicians, notwithstanding the fact that they take the brunt of my criticism. I believe that when push comes to shove and they are left with no option but to find a compromise by nominating someone who will obtain the required support they will do so; they will rise to the occasion and find such a name. They will be forced to leave their favourite partisan nominations aside and be mature in their nomination. This is what happens in other jurisdictions; we are not reinventing the wheel. Our Italian neighbours require a similar majority for the nomination of their President of the Republic and while recognising that it occasionally takes them quite a few nominations to agree on a name, they have so far successfully nominated persons who have risen above partisan politics.
Our politicians have found common ground in the nomination of the Ombudsman and the Auditor General; the nomination of the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner should be even easier, as will all the chairpersons of government-nominated boards, committees and institutions. What we require here is a proper mechanism for their removal on the grounds of failure for whatever reason – it is this mechanism that should not be left in the hands of politicians and not their nomination. It is this mechanism which has failed civil society. Recent history has shown us that when it comes to discussions on removal, our politicians could never rise above political allegiances which ended up being the sole deciding factor on whether to remain in office or otherwise, as opposed to the more appropriate yardstick of whether responsibilities have been carried out according to the expected ethical considerations.
Our Parliament is debating the new media and defamation bills – clearly, this is a step in the right direction promoting further the right to freedom of expression, widening the definition of the term editor, introducing definitions of slander and defamation, introducing the concept of serious harm and included websites within the reach of the law. A number of proposed amendments need to be properly debated at committee stage since they are lacking in thought. Can we trust our politicians to do this thoroughly, without political partisanship and bias as their basis? The Bill itself does not clearly lay down that it is a Bill to repeal and replace the current Press Act; one arrives at this conclusion through deduction.
How the authors of this Bill came out with the brainwave of eliminating the obligation of the media to have a registered editor is inexplicable. They have clearly failed to understand the implications on a wider scale and the effect on other laws, notably the Broadcasting Act which recognises the editor of the media house, when suddenly the holder of a broadcasting licence has become an editor under the Bill. This is nonsensical. The proposed Bill is also lacking in providing the necessary protection to avoid the use of legal proceedings from producing a chilling effect on free speech. The recent experiences in our country do not seem to have produced the same eye-opening effect on everyone. Lest we forget, an entrepreneur decided to file some 18 suits on the same topic against one defendant – need I say more? The Bills also provide for the possibility of the introduction of a notice and take down system and the protection of one’s integrity by putting into effect the right to be forgotten.
I do question however, the sudden rush to push it through Parliament without a proper consultative period, since the consultative period was on a former draft which has since changed radically.
Christmas is around the corner and consumerism will take be the centre of our attention. Our society is faced with many pressing issues. All I long for this Christmas is a better society – what about you?