The granting of presidential pardons has recently made it to the top of the public opinion agenda, following the request for such a pardon that had been made on behalf of the two ADT employees who were found guilty of corruption.
In Malta, the Presidency is a non-executive one and any so-called 'Presidential pardon' is granted on the advice of the government. Contrary to what many seem to think, the President himself has no say in the decision.
Malta is not the United States, where the President is an executive one and where, for example, President Bush recently commuted the prison term of a former Vice-Presidential aide who was sentenced for perjury, after lying about his role in exposing Valerie Palme as a CIA operative. This has obviously tended to increase the public disapproval of George W. Bush. Yet in the US, no one has even considered the possibility of eliminating the system of presidential pardons. Not even when President Ford pardoned Nixon or when Bill Clinton outrageously issued 140 pardons on his last day in office, including one to notorious tax evader Marc Rich.
In Malta, the reaction calling for the abolition of the presidential pardons system - that is found in all democratic countries - was out of proportion to the events that provoked it in the first place. Perhaps it is a sign of our political immaturity.
Presidential pardons are not granted without rhyme or reason and, as has been explained, the criteria guiding such decisions are either humanitarian i.e. where circumstances indicate the mitigation of a punishment; or legal, such as in the case of a miscarriage of justice or of punishment that is disproportionate to the offence. A pardon can also be given so that someone who is an accomplice to some crime can give state evidence without being persecuted for the crime - but that is another matter.
The most 'famous' presidential pardons in Malta in recent years are the 1996 pardon of Joseph Fenech (il-Hafi) so that he could give state evidence in an attempted murder case; the 1992 pardon given to Lorry Sant for his part in the infamous law courts incidents of June 1987; and the pardon given to leading GWU exponents - including their then legal adviser George Abela - who were accused of physically stopping a police bus carrying arrested union activists during the summer 1999 GWU attempt to paralyse the airport.
The most controversial of the lot is probably the pardon given to Lorry Sant, who later claimed that he had not asked his lawyer - Joe Brincat - to ask for the pardon. Later Alternattiva Demokratika falsely claimed that this pardon was given to Mr Sant for his role in the corrupt building permits system overseen by him - crimes that were time-barred when proof of them was forthcoming.
Asking for a Presidential pardon on behalf of clients is not alien to the role of criminal lawyers, and so Opposition Leader Alfred Sant was objectively correct when he said that the six Labour MPs who admitted having asked for such pardons were just doing their job and rendering a professional service to their clients.
This attitude - correct as it might be - is in stark contrast to what the MLP propaganda machinery hypocritically spun in the case of the criminal lawyer who asked for a presidential pardon on behalf of the two former ADT employees who have been at the centre of attraction in what has now become a cause célèbre!
But then, in that case, the lawyer was not a Labour MP, but a PN one. Not surprisingly, two weights and two measures is not an alien concept either to the MLP or to its leader, Dr Sant.
Figures published in another paper on Wednesday reveal that in the last three years there were 254 requests for presidential pardons, of which 141 were granted and 113 refused. Of the 141 granted pardons - to my mind, a rather high number - the vast majority (132) concern pardons or reductions in prison sentences for VAT-related offences and none were general amnesties.
These statistics immediately raise an important question. The state has imposed by law draconian punishments in the case of VAT-related offences and the law made it obligatory on the courts to apply them. Yet, the state has later shown that it is not so sure on what it has imposed by wavering when the letter of the law was applied! Putting this question in another way, doesn't this show that no democratic government can impose laws that citizens refuse to obey; or, as idiom would have it, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink?
The deterrent effect of the draconian punishments contemplated in the VAT law has obviously been brought to naught if those who ignored - or defied - the law and were handed over necessarily harsh sentences by the courts were subsequently given a presidential pardon 'on humanitarian grounds'! If someone is fined a sum that he cannot possibly pay, does that fine make sense? Considering this situation, amending the VAT laws by introducing different punishments - such as temporary suspensions of trading licences - would probably, make more sense.
Looking objectively at the system of presidential pardons and how it has been applied over the years indicates that the recent howls about it were not justified. Two cartoon 'howlers' - that viciously implied that the presidential pardon system is part of a prevalent corruption ambiance - continued to reinforce the false public perception of the 'role' of presidential pardons system in the recent ADT case. These continued to cloud the issue, when the media's duty is to report events and developments - whether nice or ugly - truthfully and clearly.
Perhaps, the 'secrecy' that seems to surround the granting of presidential pardons does not do the system - and our democracy - any good. I strongly believe that the whole process should be a transparent one with lists of pardons granted or refused being periodically published in the Government Gazette, together with reasons for the official positive or negative reaction. If we had such a system in place, much of the hullabaloo about presidential pardons that found itself in the press of late, particularly in letters from uninformed readers, would have been avoided.
micfal@maltanet.net