A friend showed me a list of wellknown cases that had reached the courts and stalled there. It’s quite a long one. It covered cases flagged by scandal about corruption, abuse of power, fraud or criminal acts linked to prominent figures mostly in politics (but not only) and others close to them.

It’s as if the fact that such cases are caught in a judicial limbo is of comfort to all around. Naturally it also projects the understanding that in this country, anything goes.

Now, one cannot but believe that progress in ongoing trials, depends too on the initiative and will of judges and magistrates when managing court cases. As quite often, members of the judiciary have been vocal in expressing themselves harshly about the executive and about political actors over rule of law issues, I would have imagined that about such a delicate subject as judicial limbo, they would have taken steps... but it does not seem as if this has happened.

In an interview he gave this week, the ex-US charge d’affaires Shapiro diplomatically referred to the problem. He mentioned the exaggerated delays encountered in Maltese courts till cases are decided... when they are decided.

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The European Council

The endless discussions in the European Council of these past days have hardly projected an attractive vision of the European Union. Even more so with the stories about how during certain discussions some lost their temper, others banged on the table.

Now this was a topic they were discussing about which the decisions that needed to be taken were among the most important – the fund needed for Europe to launch a strong recovery programme to counter the damage caused by the corona virus pandemic – and tied to it, the EU budget for the coming seven years.

I have long been highlighting how in the eurozone, as well as in the EU as a whole, instead of an economic and social convergence that brings all parts of the union closer to each other, divergence has been growing. The same seems to be happening as of now on a political level.

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Huawei

Hardly more than a year ago, the UK’s department for homeland security, including the security services, concluded in a special report that there would be no threat to the country’s security if the Chinese company Huawei were brought into the exercise by which the UK’s internet systems would be boosted with the latest advanced technology.

The US, which aims to claw Huawei out of the world market for this technology, complained bitterly. The UK recently announced Hauwei would be excluded from what they plan to carry out. Clearly, with the Chinese out of the picture, the gateway has been opened for the Americans.

I doubt the extent to which the UK will have on this basis obtained a better guarantee for its security. After all, less than two years ago if I remember correctly, the US was discovered running an extremely sophisticated spying system on European leaders. Among whom chancellor Merkel: for the Americans had put in place an arrangement by which they could eavesdrop on all she had to say even via the most secret phone in the chancellery.