The latest dispute concerning Ta” Cenc highlights issues of far graver significance than that of a group being denied “permission” to go for a walk in the countryside. Any citizen can invoke the law to enjoy “Everyman’s right”, that is, unfettered “public right of way or access”, irrespective of who owns the surrounding land.

This “little local difficulty” however, is eclipsed by the implications of EU membership predicated on a fully functioning democracy based on “the rule of law” without fear or favour.

Are injured parties necessarily expected to legally challenge the owner of the bordering terrain on each and every systematic instance of his breaking the law of the land?

One shudders to reflect on Malta’s tarnished international standing given that Finland, the current holder of the EU Presidency, pioneered the concept and long established practice of “Everyman’s right”.

One cringes when one contemplates Malta’s besmirched reputation among its EU partners given the documented evidence when the police were used by this government as political pawns to subvert the rule of law. It was ordered to forcibly and illegally block public access to “Everyman’s Right” in Ta” Cenc as recently as 13 August 2005; a scene eerily similar to the atrocity of The Berlin Wall, erected precisely 44 years earlier, regarding which President John F. Kennedy pronounced, “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!”

Here therefore, are your freedom and pride?

The Declaration of Rights of 15 June 1802, printed in Italian on the back of the five liri banknote, expressly rebuts the notion that “any man whosoever should exercise personal authority over the liberty of another, given that such power subsists in the law only”. The time has come for Maltese and Gozitan citizens to consider whether to passively accept or dynamically act upon their own response as “free men” to this flagrant violation of their human rights.

As regards “what you can do for your country”, local politicians not only monitor newspapers as assiduously as foreign diplomats, but liberally disseminate their e-mail addresses and contact details, especially preceding elections. This is to invite feedback, petitions, instructions and mandates.

They have now received mine.

How about yours?

Oisin Jones-Dillon

ST PAUL’S BAY