Tell us about the State, our father. Thus went a question by Emmy Bezzina, host of the mid-1980s TV discussion show Anima, to the late Peter Serracino Inglott. In case you haven’t heard, it was a time of political arbitrariness and thug rule. Bezzina’s would not have been seen as an absurd statement by many of his viewers.
It says a lot about those times that Fr Peter’s answer, even months later, was being cited by people who admired his courage: “To begin with, the State is not our father. It is our servant.”
Within 10 years of that programme, you could always bank on a newspaper columnist or letter-writer to tell everyone that paternalism in Malta was over, that having (re)established the rule of law we would never back. The warnings issued to politicians – that the age of ideology was over, that they should pay heed to their masters, the people – rang across the land with a timeless hackneyed quality.
We are, no doubt, a freer country than we were 30 years ago. However, we are not, on some key measures, a freer country than we were a dozen years ago.
And the indications are that our freedom is being encroached by a new political paternalism, which began years before the last general election but which seems to be gathering momentumunder Labour.
According to Transparency International, over the last decade we have slid down the corruption index. It’s a slide with considerable implications for justice and democracy that was covered in this space a few weeks ago.
And, according to Freedom House, which issues widely cited annual reports on press freedom and the legal, political and economic environments in countries around the world, we have also seen a gradual but discernible deterioration in our legal environment and press freedom.
We are still classified as a free country and our press is still rated as free. However, in 2002, our legal institutions got the highest rating (zero out of 30); 10 years later, we had slid to a score of four; last year, we were down a bit further, to five.
That slide tallies with our own perception. It has occurred in spite of the justice minister’s assurances that the system is being reformed (if he’s right, then one can only surmise the slide would have been more pronounced).
The shift in the economic environment is downwards but minimal (8/30 in 2002; and 9/30 for the last several years). But the political environment has deteriorated more: 5/40 in 2002 – despite that being a year of do-or-die hostilities over EU membership – and 9/40 for the last several years.
All these scores we somehow intuit on the basis of our daily lives. But what about press freedom? I was myself surprised initially. In 2002, press freedom had a score of 13/100 and over the years we slid down steadily a full 10 points: to earn 23/100 in 2014.
In 2012, the year when many Maltese were chomping at the bit of censor-ship, our press freedom was, on this measure, marginally higher than it was two years later.
Unlike the other scores, this one seems counter-intuitive. Censorship laws have been liberalised.
It’s difficult to think of any question of public interest whose answer has not been blocked on the grounds of it endangering national security, the economy or privacy
Pornography is about to be legally permitted while the vilification of religion will no longer be an offence. People aregirding their loins against the consequences of too much freedom of expression, not too little.
On reflection, however, it tallies with what has been happening. Press freedom is not just about being free to shoot your mouth off with impunity. It is, even more importantly, about the freedom of information – to find out what the government is up to.
Up till 2012, we did not even have a law that guaranteed this freedom. Essentially, government documents were deemed to be classified unless the government itself decided you deserved to know.
It was an attitude that went counter to the trend in Europe, where the law assumes that you have a right to know barring certain limited exceptions.
Despite having a Freedom of Information Act, however, in practice the government is still paternalistically deciding what we can know. It’s difficult to think of any question of public interest whose answer has not been blocked on the grounds of it endangering national security, the economy or privacy. How do other countries manage?
Deterioration in the legal environment and in the freedom to know are interconnected. Access to information decentralises power. It’s a constraint on those with a mandate to rule.
A strong legal environment gives us an institutional framework, independent of the political process, in which we can act on information that alarms us.
A deterioration in the rule of law and in access to information essentially makes us all dependent on politicians – not just the governing party but also the Opposition. What that means is that State institutions begin to give way to a personalisation of power: the return of paternalism, where power flows from leaders not from independent institutions.
If all this seems a trifle abstract, see how it has worked out in the case of the American University of Malta.
Joseph Muscat has hailed it as a fair compromise. He’s said it will generate jobs and improve quality of life for Cospicua, Marsascala and the ‘South’ in general.
Perhaps. But how can we know?
Only because he tells us. We do not know if it’s fair because we do not have access (yet) to the agreement he has struck with the Jordanian entrepreneur behind the project. We do not know Muscat’s actual estimate of the jobs it would create for the ‘South’.
Which economist will be ready to stake his personal reputation on giving a figure or at least a calculus? Which sociologist or anthropologist will stake her reputation on a social impact assessment? The press has yet to look anyone up.
What we have had, instead, is the Prime Minister personally trying to pick a market winner – no bidding process among desirable universities was even held. We do not know the opportunity cost.
And, a project designed to create private profit has been portrayed as a ‘gift’ by the government to the people of Cospicua. Public servants do not give gifts to the people they serve. A gift flows out of personal generosity not public service. It blurs the line between the personal and the institutional. It calls for gratitude and thanks from those on whom it is bestowed.
It is, in short, the language of paternalism, whose politics is personal and arbitrary. It predates this government. Our political system has long been in the process of becoming a de facto presidential one. But it is hardening and spreading at a rapid pace now, without the checks and balances.
ranierfsadni@europe.com