“There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.” That is the writing on the wall, literally. Law-abiding citizens who believe in the rule of law and democracy and, in particular, journalists, can translate that message thus: there are potential killers all over and the situation is now explosive.
Earlier this month, Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri, publicly noted that the courts cannot defend the rule of law and justice cannot take its course if the Attorney General and the police fail in their duties. To this newspaper, that meant that the sacrosanct principle of the rule of law was under attack.
That was why the Times of Malta concluded that what the country’s supreme adjudicator had said amounted to Justice Minister Owen Bonnici and Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia having been summoned to appear before the judiciary and answer to charges of dereliction of duty.
Who would have thought that, barely two weeks later, it would be the fundamental human right of freedom of expression, another essential ingredient in a thriving democracy, that would be facing clear and present danger.
This time, it is the Prime Minister who must answer to accusations of failing in his duties: allowing governability to be corrupted; institutions to be weakened; incompetent individuals to be appointed to delicate positions; cronyism to become the practice; transparency and accountability to become meaningless even within the Cabinet of ministers and at the office of the Prime Minister itself; attempts to stifle unfriendly media... In short, under his watch, the structure of checks and balances was dismantled.
Daphne Caruana Galizia relentlessly hammered that point home but the Prime Minister, and his band of merry men, tried to humiliate her because they put themselves before everything else. To her, it was the national good that mattered. They survived and, indeed, emerged stronger in the last election. She was brutally murdered last Monday.
This is not to say or even imply that the Prime Minister or any of his colleagues were behind her assassination. That is up to investigators to determine. Still, the failings mentioned above led the country to the point where, last Monday, crime met politics and, for the first time in Maltese history, a journalist/blogger was murdered because of her work.
Ms Caruana Galizia will no longer write the incisive blogs that gave so many sleepless nights to so many people. They may think they are less accountable now. That is what the people behind the powerful bomb that killed Ms Caruana Galizia think. They are wrong.
French newspaper Le Monde ran a brilliant cartoon showing a gendarme who, holding a magnifying glass and kneeling under a sign with the words “Welcome to Malta”, declares he found what had caused the explosion: a pen.
As if to stress the point, it was reported over the past days that a laptop had been discovered in the car Ms Caruana Galizia was driving when she was bombed.
The laptop, today’s equivalent of the pen, is indestructible. The pen is mightier than the sword. The laptop, the tablet, the smartphone have a bigger range than what even the most powerful of explosive devices can cover.
So, those crooks who think their mission is accomplished should read the writing on the wall: we are all Daphne Caruana Galizia.