When, shortly after the 2013 elections, we saw the newly-appointed Minister for Home Affairs and National Security being embraced and lifted shoulder-high by hardened criminals to chants of Malta Tagħna Lkoll, we realised with a shudder that the slogan that had won the Labour Party such an overwhelming victory had a meaning which went well beyond a call for national unity.
As the last 18 months have unfolded, it is clear that, rather like double-think in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (where a person tells deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them), the words carry connotations of nepotism, cronyism and the betrayal of all the prior promises made by the Labour Party in Opposition about a non-partisan and meritocratic approach to politics and public appointments.
But it is also now increasingly clear that Malta Tagħna Lkoll (literally, Malta belongs to all of us) also stands for a couldn’t-care-less attitude to the forces of discipline and law and order in Malta on a scale of lawlessness not seen by me in the 18 years since I returned to live here.
If Malta is really Tagħna Lkoll, then the interpretation seems to be: “It’s ours, so we can do what we like.” At the best of times, this attitude never lies far below the surface in the Maltese psyche. It is probably the most unpleasant of our national traits.
It now seems to have become worse, encouraged by a government that, by its actions, has aided and abetted the feeling that rules are there to be bent if not broken. A broken-backed and ill-led planning authority in hock to the developers, a non-existent environmental authority, the unconscionable concessions to bird hunters and trappers in the face of a dubious interpretation of EU law, the disregard by many ministers of their obligations under the ministerial code of ethics, the blatant promotion to top posts in the forces of the AFM and the police of party faithful whose experience must be doubted, the unorthodox treatment of those in the smart meters scam - all have contributed to this feeling of sanctioned indiscipline and lawlessness.
Lawlessness in Malta is inbred. It is a uniquely Maltese feature because everybody is aware of it, yet, nobody in authority has the will to do anything about it. Worse, such is the national acceptance of this state of affairs that the vast majority of people simply look the other way.
There is little that escapes the opportunists and greedy in our country, confident that, given the irresistible combination of lack of political will and an ineffective Malta Police Force, the arm of the law will not reach them.
Mine is necessarily a subjective assessment. But look around you and make a mental comparison with what respect for the law was like before 2013. It was not particularly good then but my perception now is that it has got worse.
While the increased crime statistics for burglary, thieving and pick-pocketing in Sliema and St Julian’s speak for themselves, disregard for the law is rife in so manyother ways. From dangerous driving tocontinuing illegal occupation of public land, to planning irregularities too many to list, to the use of illegal boreholes, to illegal hunting of protected species, to the noise and air pollution, to the litter and dumping everywhere. These are all part and parcel of the Malta experience and barely rate a shrug of the shoulders any more.
In Valletta, it is clear in the last 12 months that illegal parking in nominally-designated pedestrian areas is being abused and some of the leading offenders in, for example, Merchants Street and Melita Street are ministers or their acolytes (Malta Tagħna Lkoll).
The incident of the helipad at St Luke’s Hospital commandeered by a private car, which stopped it being used in an emergency; the sale of alcohol to under-age children in Paceville; the misbehaviour of foreign English language students because they are not properly supervised by their hosts; the firing of fireworks and petards outside the permitted hours. Anything goes.
By its actions, the government has aided and abetted the feeling that rules are there to be bent if not broken
As to the manifold reported encroachment abuses by hawkers, kiosks, beach concessions, bars and restaurants, the transgressions in the face of supine government entities’ inaction are legion.
But it doesn’t stop there. The latest and most blatant illustration of Maltese lawlessness is the illegal road which has been built on Comino, an ecologically-protected island, a bird sanctuary and a nature reserve. It beggars belief that nobody has yet been apprehended for this environmental crime.
Supporting the contention that there has been a (possibly unspoken) policy decision to go easy on law enforcement, is the hard evidence that there has been a drastic reduction in the number of enforcement actions taken by the Land Department for contraventions of public land.
In the five years up to December 2012 there were, on average, 170 enforcements annually. Last year, there were 25, with only six for this half year. In an area of Maltese life where abuse is rife, it strains credulity to breaking point to accept that my compatriots have suddenly turned over a new leaf and are no longer stealing public land with the same earlier abandon.
We are an amoral, ill-disciplined and lawless society. And we seem to be getting progressively worse. The circumstantial evidence points at a number of reasons for this deterioration in behaviour.
First, the government has itself actively undermined the law by some of its actions and appears to be complicit in a reluctance to enforce the law: Malta Tagħna Lkoll.
Secondly, the authorities, from the Malta Police Force to the enforcement agencies of Mepa, the building regulations inspectorate, the Malta Tourism Authority and Land Department, are incapable of or unwilling to enforcethe law.
It is all very well for the Minister for Home Affairs announcing with a fanfare the additional recruitment of police officers but if the training and leadership of the force are poor – as they clearly are – lawlessness will still flourish no matter how many extra coppers on the beat.
Where does the buck stop? The buck stops with the Prime Minister and his ministers – primarily the Minister for Home Affairs and National Security. It is ultimately a matter of political willand leadership.
If the Prime Minister is content to let a laissez-faire approach to breaking the law prevail, his grand statements about Malta being a centre of excellence in the Mediterranean will be undermined. Malta’s reputation as a financial centre is dependent crucially on it being seen as a country that respects the rule of law.
The rule of law provides a framework for civilised behaviour. It should guide our conduct and protect our individual rights. It provides that no person is deemed to be above the law and no one can be punished by the State except for a breach of the law. Nobody can be convicted of breaching the law except in the manner set forth by the law itself. But for this to happen, the law must be enforced.
The government is in grave danger of allowing Malta Tagħna Lkoll lawlessness to undo the trust and reputation for (moderately) good order and discipline built up over the last two decades.