Probably the saying “the exception proves the law” originates from Cicero, the Roman politician and lawyer known for his oratory skills. He used this maxim while defending Lucius Cornelius Balbus, a wealthy Roman politician and businessman.
This legal principle of republican Rome was transformed into a proverb or aphorism in many countries. Giovanni Torriano quotes it in his Piazza universale di proverbi italiani (1666) though he gives a variant in the form of “the exception gives authority to the rule”.
It was established as a legal maxim in English law since the early 17th century.
Alas, all this has to change.
Our Prime Minister has turned things upside down. He acts as if “the exception disproves the law”. This new twist to the age-old maxim is the first of three important interpretative keys to anything he says.
The 2012 Embryo Protection Act, for example, made an exception about freezing. If the woman whose eggs have been fertilised dies or becomes gravely ill or refuses implantation, then freezing was allowed. Had this exception not been made the embryo would have been left to die a natural death. The exception made in the interest of the embryo proves the rule that freezing is not allowed.
But our Prime Minister is now saying exactly the opposite. He says that since there was an exception, then the rule – no freezing – has been disproved, not given more authority.
This unorthodox way of thinking opens a Pandora’s Box.
The amendments being proposed for what should be called the Freezing of Embryos Act, for example, make an exception for the self-styled altruistic surrogacy. Down the line, will this exception be used to say – as the PM said on freezing – that since there was an exception, then the rule against surrogacy has been disproven and no one should have an objection to commercial surrogacy?
And what about the use of marijuana? Will the exception for medicinal marijuana be used in the near future to justify the so-called recreational marijuana?
When the Prime Minister says something it probably means the opposite of what the words usually mean
Do we now have to look at every exception to every law or public policy as these exceptions could be used, at some time, to tell us that since we agreed to an exception then we were not giving authority to the rule, but undermining it?
A second and very important interpretative key to understanding what the Prime Minister says is his knack of saying one thing when in reality what he means is exactly the opposite. Muscat says that this Bill is protecting the embryo when a whole chorus of experts is telling him that the opposite is true.
One hundred academics from several faculties of the University of Malta have just published a paper telling the Prime Minister that his amendments do no such thing. They include, among others, educationalists, scientists, doctors, lawyers, paediatricians, geneticists, theologians, family experts and gynaecologists.
They told him loudly and clearly that these amendments make a mockery of the title of the Act as they almost completely disregard the protection of the human embryo. The status of the human embryo, they say, has been degraded to little more than a commodity. Before them, Labour stalwarts George Vella and Deborah Schembri, 23 experts in genetics, the Maltese Paediatric Association and so many others said the same things.
Moral of the story: when the Prime Minister says something it probably means the opposite of what the words usually mean.
This brings us to the third interpretative key to understanding the Prime Minister.
Before the 2013 general election he told Lou Bondi that sometimes one has to tell the truth in politics. This statement puts us in the unenviable position of trying to discover the ‘sometimes’ when truth is told and the other times when it is not being told.
The Prime Minister, for example, brandished the 2017 Labour electoral manifesto during a recent speech as proof that he had an electoral mandate for his personal determination to legalise the freezing of embryos, the renting of one’s womb and the exchange of eggs and sperm. But the electoral manifesto says nothing of the sort, so much so that Dr Schembri said she would not have contested the election had the manifesto said anything of the sort. The manifesto only has a very general reference to IVF that could be understood in many different ways. In this case, the Prime Minister did a Helena Dalli stunt.
This attitude of the Prime Minister opens him to harsh criticism and perhaps misinterpretation. Former Labour minister Godfrey Farrugia said that this law opens the way to abortion. He said this even though the Prime Minister had repeatedly said he is against abortion.
But given this tripod of interpretative keys outlined above, does one blame anyone for pointing out that the Prime Minister had also said that he was against pushbacks and adoptions by gay couples?
Coming to think of it, Muscat also repeatedly said that he was against corruption.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt