In what must be the least amusing joke of the year, a few days ago Dom Mintoff was nominated as one of the international personalities, bodies or organisations that have distinctively contributed to rendering an outstanding human service and have achieved great actions in defending human rights, protecting the causes of freedom and supporting peace everywhere in the world.

This nomination was made in Algeria by the Executive Bureau of the International Committee of the Gaddafi Award for Human Rights. First things first, any Executive Bureau (the very words conjure up the freedom-loving excesses of the totalitarian states) of any International Committee (shades of the international movement of socialist workers, another freedom-loving conglomeration) meeting in that capital of the free world, Algiers, has to have its human rights credentials rendered questionable at best.

When you couple the name of that paragon of all humanist virtues, Muammar Gaddafi, with that of the Executive Bureau of the International Committee, you have a formula that equates with the very antithesis of human rights protection. It's about as accurate a description of the whole process as that of the Federation of Hunters, Trappers and Conservationists or the Democratic People's Republic of Germany, as was.

I'm not sure whether someone was trying to be funny, or whether the people who run this award are terminally deluded: the fact that Fidel Castro is a former winner gives an indication, though to be fair, Nelson Mandela was also given the $250,000 prize, so they get it right sometimes.

I've no doubt that if Mintoff wins the prize (it's not entirely clear if he's the only nominee or if he's in competition with some other heroes of the human rights movement - perhaps Kim il Jong is in the running or even, maybe, Mugabe) he'll do something selfless with the money, so for that reason alone, I'm rooting for him. OK, I'm not, because frankly, I consider this nomination to be something of an insult to the country, because it classifies us among the self-delusional idiots who think that just because they go around patting each other on the back in fraternal joy and respect for the struggle of the oppressed masses everywhere, they're members of the human race.

Let's examine Mintoff's credentials for this award, shall we? We have a handy checklist in the Constitution, a document which took on semblances of elasticity under Mintoff's rule that its framers never contemplated.

The first right we find enshrined is the right to life. Let's ask Raymond Caruana and Nardu Debono about that one, shall we? Oh, sorry, we can't. I'm not saying Mintoff had anything to do with their deaths, of course, but they happened while his government was responsible for protecting our fundamental rights.

Moving on, we find protection from arbitrary arrest or detention, protection from forced labour and protection from inhuman treatment, to say nothing of protection from deprivation of property without compensation neatly listed as fundamental freedoms. About these we can ask all the people taken in for questioning every time the police wanted to intimidate someone, all the members of the labour corps that were set up to counteract the effects of Mintoff's ludicrous economic policies, all the people whose property and rights were expropriated and all the people whose businesses were rendered worthless by those same economic policies.

We had freedom of conscience and worship, of course, until someone thought it would be a good wheeze to mount an attack on Church schools and there was supposed to be protection of freedom of expression, at the same time. This was one of the fun areas: anyone who dared express opinions that were not entirely four-square with those of the regime was victimised every which way from Sunday and if, heaven forfend, you dared criticise Mintoff himself, you were branded a pariah beyond imagining.

About the protection of freedom of assembly and association and the protection from discrimination we shall say very little, because, quite frankly, there is very little to be said. All unions except the General Workers' Union were given a good kicking every time they dared raise their heads above the parapet and anyone who dared demonstrate about water shortages, state oppression, students' rights or any other frivolity was thumped by the cops, by their hangers-on and by politicians now among the dearly departed.

This was a very quick run through my own personal memories of the human rights scene in Malta under the premiership, actual or shadow, of Dom Mintoff, nominee for the Gaddafi Prize for Human Rights and a prize of $250,000, which if he wins he will no doubt donate to charity. He didn't perpetrate any particular excesses himself personally - he just let them happen on his watch and for this the country owes him.

What it owes him I will leave to your own imagination: if you want to share your thoughts, the comments section in the electronic Times is available.

Moving on to happier things, a couple of new places for you to try out: Palazzo Santa Rosa in Mistra, excellent food, good service and a pleasant location and Antica Roma, in Buskett, where you can sit under the trees and enjoy a good bottle of wine and some good food.