I was the subject of a long letter by a spokesperson for the Federation of Conservationist Bird Killers last Wednesday. Lino Farrugia, for it is this paragon of public relations expertise of whom I write, took me to task for saying that I'm not particularly sure what the ECJ judgement on spring hunting was all about.

Apparently, at least insofar as Mr Farrugia is concerned, my admission is to be taken as an admission that Birdlife are a load of idiots and that, when I joined forces with them last year to stretch a t-shirt over my muscular torso, I made myself into an idiot as well.

Actually, that's not what Mr Farrugia said, but his meaning so often loses itself in the spluttering that issues forth whenever pro-bird-killing chaps express their opinion (I almost wrote "vent their spleen") that I'm at a loss to understand him.

Just as I am at a loss to understand all those others who delight in rising to the bait whenever I dare, foolhardy twit that I am, to express the opinion that hunting has run its course now and these people should really think about finding themselves a new hobby.

Why do I say this?

Well, clearly, the vast majority of commentators don't like the idea of people going about the countryside shooting birds. Whether or not it is the majority of hunters who break the law has now become irrelevant, frankly, to most people. And it's rapidly becoming irrelevant to me, too: in the column to which Mr Farrugia was fulminating in response, I had conceded that it is a small minority of hunters who tarnish the image of the rest but this concession was taken by the Farrugia chap as a reason to jeer at me.

This, readers will recall, from a gentleman whose federation thinks nothing of invoking, truthfully or otherwise, the horror of suicide and the tragedy of depression because it thinks thereby that it will persuade us that we should all start campaigning for hunting to be allowed whenever the FKNK wants it to be allowed.

So, boys and girls, I've come full circle.

From taking a personal stand against hunting a couple of years ago after those cowardly attacks on journalists (amongst whom my son) by people participating in a demonstration organised by the pro-hunting lobby, attacks which failed to attract even a word of sympathy from the organisers (in fact, it was for a hair's breadth that they didn't allege that the journalists provoked them) to moderating my position to oppose only illegal hunting, Lino Farrugia's attitude is taking me right back to the "ban hunting outright" position.

They have only themselves to thank, because they choose to personalise issues and because they choose to use suicide and depression as weapons and because they choose to practise the same pastime as people who have no respect for the law.

I am unrepentant, too, about the stance I took in my real life, as you might have read, when I called on Parliament and civil society in general to take stock and to recognise that the Judiciary has to be given respect, materially and in spirit.

Many of the comments I read in the electronic Times completely missed the point I was making, presumably because - the news being what it is - they did not hear the full extent of my remarks. It's not their fault.

What is a fact, though, is that a weak judiciary, which we do not have yet but which we will have when advocates start refusing appointments to the Bench simply because they can't afford to accept, will mean that this country will cease to be a real democracy.

Granted, there is plenty of other scope for improvement and the members of the judiciary know this and accept this. Proper accountability, proper sentencing policies and a more rigorous approach to the duties to which they are called, all of these fine concepts, expressed perhaps less clearly in the comments under the report about my speech, are concepts that have to be strengthened.

For these concepts to be strengthened, both sides of the House have to agree to overhaul the system and part of the overhaul has to include a revival of the respect that is due to the judiciary. The justice system is too important a pillar of our democracy to be messed around with and there's been far too much of that already.