The past few days have seen some controversy surrounding the head of the National Book Council Mark Camilleri and the Education Ministry.
Camilleri was asked to step down after an exchange with one of the lawyers of Yorgen Fenech, who stands accused of masterminding the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, over the topic of the potential suspension of the public inquiry into the journalist’s death.
In that exchange, Camilleri told the lawyer to “kiss my glorious, brown, Marxist ass”, leading to Fenech’s lawyer Juliette Galea saying that he should be sacked from his role as head of the National Book Council.
Somebody somewhere seems to have been listening to this suggestion: Camilleri revealed that the Education Ministry had asked for him to step down – a call which was later withdrawn after Camilleri himself refused to comply and after widespread backlash, with Education Minister Justyne Caruana saying that the call to resign was based only on Camilleri’s use of vulgar language – something which Camilleri did apologise for.
The call for Camilleri’s resignation is one which, in the grand scheme of things, reeks of double standards.
We don’t need to look far to find cases where government officials have done things which are far worse than telling a lawyer to go do one – all we have to do is recall Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, who were on the receiving end of support and protection from the Labour government – namely that of Joseph Muscat – for a number of years before either unceremoniously resigning (in the case of the former) or unceremoniously being kicked out of the party (in the case of the latter).
The same protection has been afforded to other government officials.
Glenn Bedingfield was allowed to run a blog from his desk at Castille which frequently targeted people like Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Serial government appointee Jason Micallef got off scot free for calling ALS sufferer Bjorn Formosa ‘shameless’ and for mocking Caruana Galizia in comments which caused ‘considerable damage’ to the international reputation of the European Capital of Culture while he was in charge of Valletta18
Others like Mario Philip Azzopardi and Tony Zarb – who even described The Malta Independent as “political terrorists” earlier this year – weren’t even reprimanded for their own dabbling in the vulgar.
This all leads one to question how quickly the Education Ministry in this case was ready to pull the resignation trigger on Camilleri. Perhaps it is because Camilleri has, despite his socialist leanings, been a critic of the Labour government – after all, Caruana’s predecessor Owen Bonnici had apparently already ratified Camilleri’s departure from his role.
What is certain is that the call for Camilleri’s resignation is disproportionate when taken in the grand scheme of this government’s credentials of when to ask for the resignation of a public servant or not.