Mark Camilleri is a friend of mine and I appreciate his ideas. But I disagree that as a person and as a chairman of a state insrtitution he should set about somebody else on social media with a ferocious deployment of foul language that just makes no sense.

What was curious and strange is that this episode did not seem to have irritated some recently prominent defenders of civil rights who not so long ago were at the forefront to defend an actress who was allegedly badmouthed by the “it-torċa” weekly (though the courts seemed to disagree that this was really the case). And the same valiant defenders of civil rights even came out with a comparison of Camilleri’s antics with what other friends of mine like Jason Micallef and Glenn Bedignfield have written on social media.

I tried to compare what the latter had written with Mark’s outpourings and found no way they were comparable.

No matter how many years pass, little changes in the affairs of this country. If someone you dislike makes a move, just unload on him/her all the worst allegations you can put together... so long as he/she does not happen to be attacking someone else you also would like to come out against. When then in like manner, someone you agree with does the same, make sure you give him/her full support and do not bother with niceties.

We live in a very small society and the hypocritical attitudes it generates are gigantic.

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JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS

At least and at last someone has said what was obvious right from the start – and it happens to be the EU’s Advocate General. The processes by which members of the judiciary are appointed in European countries are in large part, political. This does not then mean that the persons so appointed continue to be dependent on whoever has appointed them. If they are guaranteed full independence in the charge to which they are appointed, then nothing shows that they will not be like so.

The Advocate General has advised the European Court of Justice that such a practice as that of Malta is hardly different from what is followed elsewhere.

Not to worry – there have been some locals to find fault with the European Advocate General. He should have taken a different approach, they claim!

PM Robert Abela was right to criticise those who are simply interested in undermining the government of the day and the country’s institutions.

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ABORTION AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Not so long ago, some people were praising President Trump for having appointed to the US Supreme Court judges who would make a stand against abortion. (So, were these appointments not “political”...?)

That’s how it should be they told us. Trump has appointed persons of integrity who will defend the values of life and confront those who militate against them by promoting abortion. The new judges will be asserting the values of life as sacrosanct.

Then in past weeks, Trump okayed the execution by the American federal government of a number of persons who had been on death row for decades. An appeal was presented to the Supreme Court for the death sentence not to be executed. The Supreme Court... with the votes of these saintly judges who stand foursquare against abortion... turned down the appeal. The men were executed.

What place did the sacrosanct respect towards human life have in this miserable game?