Although the panel of three judges had given their verdict hard and fast yesterday afternoon in the Daniel Holmes case, the jury which is our society was still well and truly out.
Daniel Holmes is a Welshman who lived in Gozo. A couple of years ago, he was caught having a joint in a car by police. The police accompanied him to his home in Ghajnsielem and found that he were cultivating cannabis. He lived with a flatmate.
The facts of the matter are that the police found 32 cannabis plants in the flat. They also found a lot of cannabis plant leaves and as a result, the two men were charged with cultivating and trafficking cannabis.
Holmes’ flatmate committed suicide while being kept on remand back in 2010. But in 2011, Daniel Holmes was jailed for 10 years and fined €23,000. Let us put things into perspective. There is no doubt that the law was broken. Mr Holmes broke the law and had to answer for his crimes. The Appeals court also said that the punishment passed down was well within parameters of the law – as the crime itself carries up to life imprisonment.
The three judges also said that that family suffering could not be factored in and that everyone has to be held accountable for their own doing. Referring to accusations that other people had been handed lighter sentences for more serious crimes, the court said that comparisons are odious.
While the full reaction of the general public needs to be gauged properly over the coming days and weeks, the immediate feeling is that while Daniel Holmes deserved to be punished, he did not deserve the severity of what was dished out to him.
As mentioned, the court quoted writer Oscar Wilde in saying that “comparisons are odious”. Yet we firmly believe that they sometimes need to be made. Maltese society is changing and many are calling for an overhaul of the drug laws – something which the government seems to be taking note of. And this is where we make our comparisons. In Malta, we have seen very light punishments being given out for very serious crimes. Child abuse, domestic abuse and even fraud cases have seen the perpetrators be given very lenient punishments in comparison to the Holmes case.
Make no mistake. The judges acted within the parameters of the existing laws, and to quote the judges themselves, 10 years is nowhere near the maximum life imprisonment. But is this really a reflection of what goes on in our society? It is not Daniel Holmes who has got the real rough end of the stick in this case – it is his wife and his daughter. But someone who paid an even higher price was his flatmate, the man who committed suicide back in 2010. Malta is at a crossroads here and we really need to decide where we are going.