Roughly 12 years ago – a few days after George Grech had resigned from the post of Police Commissioner, he was assaulted by a man who punched him in the face and sent him flying to the floor. The attack happened in broad daylight and there was no getting away from the fact that it had happened, perhaps in retaliation for the police investigation which Grech had conducted years back into his aggressor’s affairs.
If there was ever the need for a sentencing policy, it’s now
Despite the high-profile nature of the case and the alarm factor that it provoked, Grech’s assailant was fined a measly €174.
Naturally, the public reaction was quite scathing. If that was the going rate for bashing up an enemy, it was considered to be a bargain. This was getting mad, getting even – and doing it cheaply. Rather than a deterrent, that judgment was an open invitation for others to unleash their inner Mike Tyson on those they disliked.
Ordinary law-abiding citizens received another message – basically that they were at the mercy of any one with anger management issues and a propensity towards violence.
The situation on the sentencing front hasn’t improved. Last week, a jilted lover broke the nose of his former partner’s new boyfriend with a telescopic truncheon. The truncheon-wielder admitted to this in court, as well as to threatening his former partner.
They say that comparisons are odious, but I couldn’t help thinking back to the risory fine incurred by Grech’s aggressor back in 2001. If a bare-knuckle attack warranted a €174 fine, shouldn’t an attack using arms improper (that’s how a telescopic truncheon is defined) warrant something more severe? Especially in view of the fact that the weapon had been employed in crushing the cartilage of someone’s nose?
And didn’t the threats and the possession of an illegal weapon warrant something more than a stern talking to from the magistrate?
The maximum fine for such an offence is three months imprisonment or €1,164. Our jealous lover got off with a conditional discharge and a fine of €50 for the illegal possession of a weapon. No doubt, this will put the fear of God into him, and next time he will desist from breaking other people’s bones by counting up to 10 or breathing deeply. He wouldn’t want to be fined the exorbitant price equivalent to five pizzas, would he?
Public confidence in the law courts is at an all-time low. Judgments like this don’t help. If there was ever the need for a sentencing policy, it’s now. We really can’t wait around while people get a (practically) free hand committing acts of violence.
• There’s a Facebook group called ‘This is Malta under a Labour Government’ which was ostensibly set up to have members discuss if Malta is better off under a Labour government. In reality, it’s more of a virtual support club for discouraged Nationalist supporters who go online to commiserate with like-minded supporters. I suppose it’s the modern equivalent of having agood moan down at the pub while nursing a long, stiff drink.
As is to be expected with groups of this sort, there’s a lot of fault-finding withJoseph Muscat and Co. and pinning the blame for every calamity to befall the country since March 8 upon the Labour Government. In between getting terribly agitated over Michelle Muscat’s magazine photo shoot, the members of the group do a fair bit of agonising over the future of theNationalist Party.
If you make your way through the jungle of exclamation marks and frankly ridiculous remarks, it would seem that there are two distinct camps within the Nationalist Party, both fighting for its soul.
In the first place there are those – like the majority of commentators in this group – who are absolutely Nationalist diehards and who view the world through deep blue-tinted specs. For them, the election result was solely due to thousands of opportunists leaving the party and jumping ontothe creaking Labour favour wagon. For them, the PN is not to blame for the fact that voters have abandoned it in droves. In their book, the Gonzi administration may have made a few minor errors – but these were always inadvertent mistakes because the former PN leader had his eye on the big picture – that of safeguarding the Maltese economy.
Every scandal unearthed during the former administration could be justified by a reference to Labour’s dark period back in the 1980s. And of course, the divisions within the PN could all be attributed to the doings of a couple of traitorous rebels.
For the Nationalist supporters with this mindset, the path to victory does not require much soul-searching or beating themselves up about the run-up to March 2013. They don’t really see the need of any wholesale change. In their opinion, it is only a matter of time until the voters who have floated over to Labour, see the error of their ways and return to the fold.
From what I gather, their winning strategy consists of staying put, muttering darkly online and putting voodoo pins in effigies of the Prime Minister. Even though this cohort of the party was not referred to in the report about the PN’s electoral defeat, the ingrained resistance to change (and to reality) is one of the biggest stumbling blocks the party has in its quest for renewal.
Unless these people can be persuaded that there is a real need for a change of direction and mentality, the PN is going to have a long stay in opposition.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt