Governance has suffered badly at the hands of Joseph Muscat’s government. Supposedly independent and auto-nomous bodies, notably the Planning Authority, have lost their bite and, in some cases, even their bark.
Institutions, including the police and the Attorney General’s Office, have suffered a similar fate. The independent media ended up in the line of fire too.
The last thing we want is that the citizens’ foremost shield against abuse of any sort – the courts – are targeted too.
Is this all gloom and doom? Regrettably, it is reality and what makes the situation so explosive is the fact that it is not only the party in power that is to blame but, certainly in the case of the judiciary, the Opposition also has a lot to answer for.
Judges and magistrates, who are appointed by the government of the day, rightly enjoy security of tenure and can only be removed from office by a two-thirds majority of the House of Representatives. The idea, of course, is to ensure they can fulfil their delicate duties without fear or favour.
The judiciary, the Chamber of Advocates advised the other day, should always be allowed to carry out its duties serenely and without any interference or pressure. It was stating the obvious but prevailing circumstances made that reminder necessary.
It called upon those having any influence on public opinion “including journalists and bloggers and… politicians, in particular” not to make “certain comments” in respect of judges and magistrates.
The Chamber of Advocates publicly declared it was “seriously concerned” with comments made by the leader of the Opposition that a judge should not hear a case related to the Panama Papers because he was married to a Labour MEP.
It said such talk cast a shadow on the independence and impartiality of the judge in question and on his colleagues.
The Nationalist Party reacted, arguing that, rather than an attack, the comments should be considered as defending the judiciary’s independence. It certainly did not sound like that.
The law gives the leader of the Opposition, and everybody else for that matter, the right to request the recusal of a judge/magistrate but that must be done through the correct legal avenues and not in what would appear to be outbursts of a political nature.
The size of the country and the population being what it is, having a relative – even a close one – sitting on the Bench is not uncommon. Not so long ago, in fact, the General Workers’ Union requested the recusal of a judge in a case instituted by the PN regarding an alleged breach of contract over the Workers’ Memorial Building, in Valletta, on grounds that she is a relative of members of a law firm representing the Nationalist Parliamentary Group.
Justice must not only be done but also be seen to be done. Yet, what matters most is that justice is indeed done and only sitting judges and magistrates can do that. It is their conduct and rectitude that make them good or bad adjudicators not who their relatives are.
All must be careful when dealing with the judiciary, the bulwark of human rights and the rule of law. Otherwise, we would continue going down that dangerous slippery slope to chaos and the law of the jungle.