When Saviour Balzan launched his book Saying It As It Is, I was invited to give a short speech. I remember pointing out that the book ends with what Balzan called “The story of the decade” – the Enemalta oil procuring scandal, a story that is again the talk of the town with the somewhat controversial presidential pardon and the still ongoing police investigations.
When the story broke in Malta Today, in the first days of the 2013 election campaign, many had concluded that Labour had the story and used Balzan’s newspaper to release it.
Balzan’s version is quite different. In his book he mentions an unnamed person – whom he describes as “the most unlikely source” – who handed him documents about the case at 11pm... leading me to ask whether this was Malta’s version of Watergate’s ‘Deep Throat’!
One is tempted to ask whether at the time when the oil scandal story first broke out, Balzan already had the documents that are being revealed now, and hence it would be legitimate to ask why these previously ignored documents – mainly copies of e-mails – were kept in storage, only to be released on the unsuspecting public much later. This possibility, on its own, would be an interesting issue revolving around journalistic ethics. On the other hand, it could well be that Balzan has had yet another late evening tryst with his mysterious informer who passed on the ‘new’ documents.
This raises the possibility of an informer manipulating the media, and hence public opinion, by passing on information in bits and pieces according to a plan set out beforehand for ulterior motives.
This seems to have happened in the recent case concerning the shooting spree of a ministerial driver with regard to the way the telephone conversation tapes were passed on to the PN media. On being accused that it was releasing information selectively, the PN had, in fact, declared that the information was being released as soon as it was being received.
An intelligent informer acting for ulterior motives could therefore be in the position of using the media to manipulate public opinion, with the media playing the role of an unwilling accomplice.
What is more interesting is the role of the press in revealing such sordid scandals in contrast with the possibility of a genuine whistleblower raising the alarm.
For some time there was a lot of political hype – especially coming from Alternattiva Demokratika – about the lack of a Whistleblower Act in Malta. The Gonzi administration had published a draft law for consultation purposes but this never made it to the statute book, and the relevant law was enacted by the present administration with the agreement of the PN Opposition.
I have always held that in the Maltese environment this is a piece of useless legislation and in fact, to date, it has never been resorted to.
On paper, such courageous people as would-be whistleblowers are protected from disciplinary action, retribution, discrimination and court action. In practice, any whistleblower in the private sector in Malta would be doomed to be unemployed for the rest of his or her life.
Perhaps a law regulating State pardons is needed
A would-be whistleblower in the public sector would also face consequences: I have no doubt that he or she will be permanently considered as a nuisance by the rest of the civil service. There are no ifs or buts about this, even if one assumes that the whistleblowing was simply an act of conscience. Malta is too small for whistleblowers – protected as they might be – not to be identified and pilloried.
The biggest problem is that an accomplice cannot be a whistleblower. Citizens who resort to corruption because they desperately need some go-ahead or sanction from a civil servant are, in fact, accomplices and can never be whistleblowers, no matter how unwilling – and angry – they might be for having to ‘solve the problem’ in the way they did.
To receive protection from criminal court action, an accomplice must turn State evidence – a procedure that totally depends on the powers that be that consider each case on its own particular merits and decide accordingly.
The option of the State granting a presidential pardon is, by far, the most effective way at nailing most – certainly not all – people involved in some particular criminal case. However, as we are now seeing, if the pardoned person does not fully observe the conditions of the pardon, serious problems crop up.
There has been talk of withdrawing such a pardon, but this seems to be uncharted legal territory as nobody knows what the effects of such a withdrawal would be, with legal experts saying it would complicate matters for the police in related pending court cases. Perhaps a law regulating State pardons is needed.
All this continues to show the importance of the media in a democratic system, more so considering the protection resulting from it not being obliged to reveal its sources.
Yet this does not mean that it can do no wrong.
Indeed, manipulating the way the media reveals the information that it has come across can be a dangerous game.
micfal@maltanet.net