I really do not agree with this pitiful idea of some people who are clamouring for measures to curb criticism – often mistakenly interpreted as “an attack” – of the judiciary as if it is some sacred cow that needs to be pampered and permanently kept in a cotton cocoon.
Judges and magistrates do not belong to a class of untouchables, thank goodness. Like fellow professionals from different sectors and other members of society, they need to be open to criticism and have their decisions regularly observed and assessed. We cannot have self-proclaimed transparent politicians and oft-declared transparent institutional figures set against a cloistered judiciary that is protected from the public’s reactions in whichever form they are made and from whichever communication outlet they come.
I am sure that a majority within the judiciary itself agree they are no obsolete golden monkey for visitors to gawk at in some remote mountain monastery. A modern judiciary would think of itself as being as highly aware of its constitutional and professional responsibilities as it is of the need to be part of the interactive information society in which we live.
Journalists and bloggers carry as much responsibility and should know – or be made to know – what their ethical boundaries are. There is absolutely no place for vindictive and personal criticism, but this does not in any way mean that a judge or magistrate cannot be taken to task over decisions that are publicly deemed to be controversial, if not downright wrong.
Rather than the criticism of some members of the judiciary by the media, the Chamber of Advocates’ lack of fairness in dealing with random journalists and bloggers is a lot more worrying. The two-weights-and-two-measures attitude it has shown over this and other sensitive issues annoys many of its own members who, today, happily do not stand on just one side of the political fence.
For all the criticism and public lack of trust, in the main our law courts do an incredibly good job under the stressful circumstances of a small population in which practically everybody knows everybody else. It is so sad to watch the lawyers’ own institution, from which our future judges and magistrates will no doubt one day hail, undermining the whole democratic process that gives the media and the man in the street the freedom to criticise and to disagree.
I do not need to go into any details, but suffice it to say that there has been harsh criticism of some appointments to the judiciary in the last three years that the Chamber simply chose to overlook, no doubt making the point that it is free to do so, but then it has quickly gone into a rage over the remarks of a blogger, and others, on a recent, albeit disconcerting, decision concerning the last general election. The political element within this inexplicable attitude is so obvious that one would think it is all merely intentional to provoke an unnecessary war of words amid a profusion of legal discomfort.
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Toxic mega-merger
Many people are rightly feeling uneasy about the proposed mega-merger between Monsanto and Bayer that would automatically result in control of most of the world’s entire food supply. But some people are doing something about it, foremost amongst them being “SumOfUs”, a movement of consumers, workers and shareholders speaking with one voice to counterbalance the growing power of large corporations.
Hell-bent as they are on creating a mega-corporation, Bayer and Monsanto have engaged an army of lawyers (yeah, them again) and lobbyists working hard to make this deal happen.
“SomeOfUs” want to even things up a bit and have launched an appeal for a people-powered force of the best legal minds to go into every nook and cranny and dig out all the dirty details. It is all in the spirit of the one per cent against the 99 per cent strategy so successful in Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in the US.
The time available in which to assemble such a team, however, is tight as the legal teams of Bayer and Monsanto continue pushing hard to nail down a deal as soon as possible. All one needs to do is chip in $1 to help stop these corporate thugs from joining forces to the detriment of bees, farmers and the entire planet.
It is obvious one needs to fight the corporate giants at their own game by being first to the policy-makers and anti-trust authorities everywhere. The world cannot allow the creation of a global food monopoly of dangerous pesticides and GMO seeds.
Our own government has shown it leads by example when, during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Plant Protection Products, it was the only EU country to vote against the continued use of glyphosate. In the case of the Bayer-Monsanto mega-merger, we can individually give our share to stop it before it is too late.
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Erdogan-obsessive
Like many other writers and commentators all over the world, I have to admit to becoming an Erdogan-obsessive. Not since Uganda’s Idi Amin has the world had a political figure able to shock it and amuse it at the same time with his declarations and sweeping statements. To beat even presidential hopeful Donald Trump and, possibly, a beleaguered Simon Busuttil for this recognition is saying something, but Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, has done it, as his umpteenth absurd comment, this time on birth control, recently confirmed.
Only last week he insisted that devout Muslim families ought to thrive without considering population planning and birth control, a statement that was as forcefully delivered (in a live broadcast in Istanbul) as when this 21st-century Ottoman Sultan recently equated birth control with treason while continuing to harshly oppose gender equality.
On 8 March – International Women’s Day – the sultan’s own wife, Emine, almost dethroned him when she came out in praise of the often-criticized harem of the Ottoman Empire as “a school for preparing women for life”.
One couldn’t help humming and adapting the Beatles’ song Lovely Rita to all this Turkish drivel:
Oh, lovely Erdo, sultan great,
Where would I be without you?
Give us a wink and make me think of you,
Lovely Ergo, sultan great.....
Here’s looking forward to the next philosophical potpourri from the harem.