We have reached the unfortunate and pitiful situation where a Minister (ie a member of the executive government) and the Parliamentary Ombudsman (ie a person enjoying the confidence of the legislative government – the highest institution in the land – with such confidence expressed by a two-thirds, not a simple, majority) are at loggerheads.

We have reached the unprecedented stage where court proceedings of sorts have been reciprocally filed. What is the issue? The Ombudsman wishes to consider complaints made by army officers with respect to promotions in the Armed Forces. The minister holds that he has no right to do so, since such is solely within his Ministry’s remit through the Commander of the Armed Forces (who himself, incidentally, hopped, stepped and jumped to the rank of Brigadier, with the Minister trying to push him of course – and remarkably keeping up in order to satisfy the Chief Minister).

I may be losing my sight somewhat but I can still manage to read. In a nutshell, according to Part B of the First Schedule to Section 12 of the Ombudsman Act of 1995, said Ombudsman has the function of receiving complaints relating to “The Armed Forces of Malta in respect only of appointments, promotion, pay and pension rights of officers and men of the Force”. For the sake of completeness, clarity and fairness, one must quote Section 12 (3) (b) of the Act, which states: “this Act shall not apply to the bodies listed in Part B of the First Schedule to this Act, unless proof to the satisfaction of the Ombudsman is produced showing that all available means of redress have been exhausted. And there are two points to be made: one legal and the other political. The section just quoted states clearly “to the satisfaction of the Ombudsman”. That is, the prerogative is solely his and his alone and obviously he would not have proceeded with his investigation unless he was satisfied “that all available means of redress have been exhausted”. It is not for the Minister to judge that and in fact he has absolutely no power to do so.

The political point is two-fold. Firstly, if I understand the Minister’s reasoning correctly, than an aggrieved Army officer in relation to an appointment or promotion must address his grievance to his Commander. Now isn’t it ironic to address such a grievance to a man who has leapfrogged over so many of his colleagues within the space of some days. For goodness sake.

But, secondly, more than that, and what is so worrying, is that the Minister treats his forces as if they were his private army and his private police corps (catering and all). No one – not even the Parliamentary Ombudsman, who is there to do just that – can, in his opinion, scrutinise his forces. What the Minister must realise is that the Parliamentary Ombudsman is above him – is superior to him – because he represents the highest and supreme institution in the land. Minister, get off your high horse before you fall off.

And yet what is surprising are two things. The failure of Mr Speaker to accept the Opposition’s request for a debate in Parliament on the issue. I understand that his ruling revolved around the issue of urgency. But the longer the debate takes to be held, the longer the complaining Army officers will have to wait to seek redress from the Ombudsman. And the other thing is the silence being held by the Prime Minister in respect of his Security Minister. I repeat what I wrote last week. Is there something we are not aware of?

I have just learnt of the report filed by three psychiatrists in the Mosta cat killer case. Very disturbing. Not only because the victims could have been one of my cats or my dog and that I reside in Mosta. But we have an experts’ verdict of “mental agitation”. We know that in the majority of cases of homicide or bodily harm, the perpetrator must have been in a state of mental agitation (“tilef il-boxxla”); and of course I’m not referring to cold bloodied Mafia style killings that unfortunately we are becoming used to.

I must of course be careful on my comments since the case is still “sub judice” with judgment being delivered tomorrow, with regard to the experts’ report of course, although I’m convinced that the presiding Magistrate will not be swayed by my writings. But one must really be careful with this concept of “mental agitation”, whatever it signifies. It could be a term which constitutes a dangerous precedent. So from now on we protect our cats and dogs at all costs from mental agitation.