Beyond the normal partisan dialectic, it is useful to get down to the real grass roots of the country and take the temperature.

One finds, from experience, that our national democracy is flimsy at best and can easily be overpowered, circumvented, by those with a personal agenda. In other words, the institutions that are supposedly there to protect the individual make a shoddy pretence of defending the citizen when in reality the citizen is at the mercy of the bullies.

This is a truth we may all, at one time or other, experience but one which we shrink back from admitting. It may be comparable, or may not be comparable, to the situation one experiences abroad, but then we are living here and what matters to us is what happens here.

All the paraphernalia of power and pomp give us the illusion that every citizen is treated justly but the reality at ground level is that many times a citizen faces quite a few difficulties in ensuring just treatment from those who are there to defend him (or her).

What I am saying today regards a rather humdrum situation in one of our villages. There are many similar situations, some worse. But each situation can have a devastating effect on those whose life it affects.

It concerns a normal residential street with quite ordinary citizens, each going about his daily life. The street, like most, includes garages which are used as they should be used – as garages.

One day, one of these garages, licensed to hold a bus, was leased to a man, who we will call Perp.

This man started to use the garage as part of his thriving business and not as a garage for a bus. Immediately, all peace and quiet disappeared as work would continue till late at night, as people and clients came and went, at all times of the day, even late at night. Parking on the street disappeared overnight.

People got exasperated and protested but so far with mixed and unsatisfactory results, as I will explain. The situation, as I write, is Perp 1 – Residents 0.

As is normal, the residents first protested to the local council, but this turned out to be their most bitter disappointment.

It is now quite clear the council knew of the problem, also because Mr Perp had created a similar situation elsewhere in the village and after a bitter battle had to move.

But the council’s first reaction was to act as if it had not received any such complaint.

Worse was to come: on one occasion, an elderly and foreign resident went to the council to complain. Within two hours, Perp was knocking on his door, threatening that he would get two men to beat him up.

The residents tried to get the councillors on their side. They got short shrift from the mayor. The deputy mayor was all interest and came on location to hear the complaints but then, strangely, was never available anymore because he was always in a meeting or other.

The residents turned to those who now call themselves the alternative government and here the results were as bad, if not worse. Five months passed before the first contact replied. And when the situation was explained, the alternative government leader simply disappeared from sight.

Then the residents tried to involve the other official bodies.

I have to say that, whatever others say about it, Mepa’s enforcement proved to be rather effective although it is limited in scope. (In another context, in another village and in another situation, Mepa’s enforcement was again good, though it did not get results, not through any fault of its own).

Mepa’s remit was to enforce the permit for the garage and, once that is being infringed, to threaten legal enforcement.

But unfortunately as happens in many similar situations, Perp and those like him play around with enforcement with ease. Over the past days, there were instances of obvious panic as Perp and his employees cleared out any trace of illegal activity. But then, come 5pm, when presumably Mepa’s enforcement officers go home, everything returned to normal, and just as illegal.

Less effective, at least as seen by the residents, proved to be Transport Malta’s enforcement section. (On a side but related issue, why do TM’s customer care officers give callers their name and only their number, as if they are police officers?)

For Perp to obey Mepa’s orders, he has to disobey TM’s regarding on-street parking, which is another of the residents’ beef. Now it is not just the one street but suddenly all the streets around it that are chock-a-block with non-residents’ cars.

Maybe there has been some TM enforcement but none that is evident to the residents. The most they got was ‘Leave it in our hands’.

There is also another related issue. The residents were advised to ask for the number of the report made (if anything, because that is now in doubt) by the local council. But the council, when asked to provide this number, did not bother to reply.

Weakest of all, alongside with the local council, were the police. Maybe, to give them their due, this is not criminal in the sense of a fight or worse (though the situation has already caused some fights with exasperated residents) but more civil, at least as I understand the Mepa Act.

On many, many occasions, they were called and the most they seemed to do was to send a car to cruise down the street without stopping or handing out tickets as you and I would get if we park on a yellow line or if we allow water out on the street.

Worse of all, Perp actually boasts he gets to know many things, from the names of the people who lodge a report to any enforcement about to take place. How else can one explain that just a short time after a report was lodged at Mepa, there was this frantic bout of activity to clear out anything that could provide a trace of illegal activity?

What may be interesting to students of social affairs is the way Perp looks at things. He has a right to carry out his activities because that is his line of work. It is almost as if the residents are at fault for not allowing him to get on with his work. At times, he bent and twisted such as limiting the hours of activity or dispersing the cars around, but basically he never for one moment thought he was in the wrong because he was infringing the right of others.

There is such a thing as bad neighbourliness, which is often mentioned at Mepa board sittings which I cover, but this does not seem to register.

There is an infringement of the conditions of sale of residences on top of the garage, but again, this does not seem to register.

There are all the many infringements I have mentioned but none seem to matter.

I have asked myself, and the residents must be asking themselves too, “Is this a real democracy when everyone is considered equal under the law or are some impervious to the law and its enforcement?”

And what’s the use of a smart turn out with uniforms and gleaming products when it is all based on stamping on the rights of residents who otherwise would be more than willing to become allies and collaborators?

One last thing: this has proved to be a unifying force among (most) residents who otherwise, as is our wont, go their own way. Despite being let down by the institutions and the powers that be, the residents are adamant that they will continue the fight.

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