Prime Minister and Labour leader Joseph Muscat recently articulated his vision of the Labour movement becoming the “law and order movement” in the immediate future.
The message to be conveyed to all is meant to be that the days when one can do as one pleases, when the law can be flouted with impunity are over. Abuses will no longer be tolerated and Labour will become the movement of good behaviour, of correctness, of respect for the law.
What the Prime Minister is envisaging would be a tall order for any leader of a country, more so for a Maltese national leader, since, unfortunately, we Maltese do not have a positive record where public respect for law and order is concerned.
Indeed, I would go so far as to say that Malta’s most successful Prime Minister will probably be facing his greatest challenge to date.
It is a fact that instances of the abuse of law and order are common in Malta. However, one should also stress the point that the reason for this is that law enforcement has always been rather lacking, for various reasons. Take traffic offences. The government should be congratulated for extending the penalty points system to all drivers. We are all fed up of seeing long traffic jams simply because some selfish truck driver parks his vehicle in the middle of the road or because a driver stops his car in front of a shop at the corner, obstructing traffic, to buy the daily newspaper. Yet, unbelievably, instead of praising this measure, the GRTU – Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises criticised it and demanded that it be fine-tuned for the private sector.
In other words, it was asking for more leniency in the case of commercial drivers. This is simply disgraceful, because some commercial drivers are notorious for ignoring the law and behaving as if they own the roads. How many times have we been stuck in traffic because a lorry driver stops to unload in the middle of the road when there is ample parking space a few metres ahead?
This is the crux of the matter: in Malta the law is openly flouted by some people because they find the support of others who can wield the necessary power to ensure impunity for them. Which is why the Prime Minister should be congratulated for insisting on applying law and order in every corner of our country.
For law and order to be successfully applied everybody has to lend a hand, especially the local councils. We cannot have a situation where certain mayors and local councillors are the first to ask local wardens to turn a blind eye to abuses.
Members of local councils are elected to protect the rights of the residents of their localities. They should not put commercial interests before the rights of citizens. It is disgusting to hear a mayor or a local councillor complain that business in the locality is suffering because local wardens are doing their job and booking transgressors.
It is a fact that instances of the abuse of law and order are common in Malta
I have often attended meetings for local councillors where some even had the audacity to publicly state they disagreed with having local wardens active in business areas of their locality at certain times of the day. On one occasion, I witnessed a local councillor standing up to suggest that, in the interests of business, the law should be suspended and not applied at certain hours of the day.
People in authority are there to ensure the rule of law and order and not to seek ways to undermine it and to further third-party interests.
The Prime Minister’s challenge extends to other problematic areas of law enforcement such as ensuring that immigrants respect our laws and our culture. On the other hand, all acts of racism should be prevented too.
Another big challenge is how to curb the power of politically powerful lobby groups, such as hunters and property developers. Labour is today powerful enough to stand up to them and should do so.
In the case of hunters, the law should be draconian in cases of abuse such as shooting down protected species. Nor can we have whole areas of our countryside becoming almost the exclusive domain of hunters such that ordinary citizens are made unwelcome on the public land that belongs to all.
In the case of property developers, the interests of the citizen should always come before commercial interests. No, as a citizen I am not prepared to sacrifice my rights and the peace of several years of my life so that a developer can make millions out of a major project.
As to the construction industry, the government is there to protect the rights of the citizen and not the other way round.
I wish the Prime Minister the best of luck in his quest to make Labour the “law and order movement”.
The present Labour government is probably the most efficient and successful Maltese government since Independence. It now faces one of its greatest challenges ever. Let’s all work towards success.
Desmond Zammit Marmarà is a Balzan Labour councillor.