How credible any criticism levelled at an institution, organisation, politician or public figures is depends heavily on the way it is made.

We all have different opinions and we all have a right to agree or disagree with anything that is said and done. We all have a right to express these opinions too.

The quote that is attributed to François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name of Voltaire, sums this up in a nutshell. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” the French philosopher had said in the 18th century.

It is a concept that unfortunately is still not understood well today, nearly 250 years later, at a time when the media has so much influence in the world we live in.

People might have valid arguments to make; their criticism could be justified too and they have every right to raise issues and question decisions taken or other ideas. But if they end up criticising the person who has different ideas, or who has taken a decision that they do not agree with, or who holds an opinion that is not consonant with theirs, then the validity of their criticism is reduced.

One should criticise the message, not the messenger, but unfortunately there have been many occasions when it was the messenger who ended up being grilled, rather than the message he or she was

delivering.

In Malta this has happened often too, and the latest example involved Dr Gordon Cordina, a respected economist, who felt he had no other option than to resign from the post of director general of the National Statistics Office, following the ruckus raised by the opposition after revisions to statistics regarding the Gross Domestic Product.

In his letter of resignation, Dr Cordina said that his area of expertise was “exclusively academic and technical” but the “events of the past weeks… went beyond a mature discussion of a technical nature… I can no longer fulfil my duties in this position with the necessary serenity.”

Dr Cordina did not spell it out directly, but it is evident that he was deeply offended with the way his professional work was attacked and, most of all, that this criticism at times verged on the personal, a matter that was raised by the government soon after the resignation and by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi himself in his ministerial statement in Parliament last Wednesday.

The Malta Labour Party had every right to ask why the statistics were reviewed and demand explanations from the NSO and from the Office of the Prime Minister, which is responsible for the NSO. But in their attempt to gain political mileage out of the situation, they ended up making the mistake of turning this into a personal issue, and this backfired.

Their second error was the publication of a technical report on the reviewed statistics without publicly stating who was responsible for its authorship. They were quick enough to criticise the revisions and commission an independent report on the matter, but then they failed to say who was behind it, and this considerably reduced the credibility of the said technical report and of the party too.

The MLP’s third mistake was that they strongly hinted that the resignation was made public on the same night Mgr Paul Cremona was ordained as Malta’s new Archbishop so that the news would not make the front pages, and that the Prime Minister knew about it three days before.

The MLP should learn lessons from what has taken place in the past week. They cannot pick on individuals who are doing their job and doing it well, as the Malta Statistics Authority said Dr Cordina was doing, just because this man happened to speak in favour of Malta’s membership in the European Union at a time when Labour was calling for a partnership.

Malta has lost Dr Cordina’s skills and competence. But, over this issue, the MLP has lost some ground too.