The President’s efforts to get constitutional discussions going may have finally got off the ground, but the Labour government has long since been hard at work restructuring the Republic. After redefining normality for the health services, the family, culture, road building, good governance, public procurement, political accountability and protecting our heritage and the environment, it has now turned its sights on the justice system.

Prime Minister Muscat has been labouring under a twin conundrum. On the one hand he does not wish to be seen to be flouting the rule of law; just two days ago he was reminded yet again that Malta is teetering on the edge of reputational suicide. This time it wasn’t some EU parliamentarians who can be safely ignored because they clearly have an anti-Maltese agenda and for some strange reason cannot be browbeaten or bought off. The warning came from Muscat’s compadres, top gaming executives whose only interest is (more) wealth. 

When people who make money off gambling are telling you that they are having second thoughts about being seen in public with you, you really should be worrying.

On the other hand he cannot afford to let his entourage risk going to prison. You see, Malta already has the fifth highest prison population rate in Western Europe. It would never do to make this other problem worse. Tħott knisja biex tibni oħra – do you unpick a jumper just to knit another one?

But, as always, Our Dear Leader has come up with a masterstroke. From now on the police will not prosecute the suspects but the tools they have used to perpetrate their crime. It is so much neater that way. No more complaints about the terrible prison canteen food or the state of the prison toilets. All the State will need is a secure warehouse. Laptops do not smuggle in drugs in their hard drives; guns do not bribe guards to jump over the walls.

But please don’t think that this will make life easier for aspiring criminals. This reform will really hit them where it hurts. The land will be rent with the cries of unfaithful men bemoaning their condoms, crooked accountants weeping for their calculators, shady bankers pining away for their USB sticks, bank robbers missing their beloved getaway cars.

From now on the police will not prosecute the suspects but the tools they have used to perpetrate their crime

But they have to learn the hard way. Only with such measures of tough love will they ultimately reform; in the meantime they can continue enriching the economy, and themselves, in their many creative ways.

But once you step out of Labour’s looking-glass world, where Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri are Tweedledum and Tweedledee and Joseph Muscat is the Disappearing Cheshire Cat, you realise the true dimension of this terrible travesty of justice. “They are investigating 17 Black, not Keith Schembri” in not just the defining sound bite for this government’s pathological refusal to be held politically responsible for anything. It is the cry of Muscat’s inner child who blamed his toys for breaking the sitting room lamp. And got away with it.

Will he get away with it again? The police have passed the buck to an inquiring magistrate; two years ago Police Commissioner Michael Cassar preferred to resign than investigate a related case. Will George Hyzler, the new Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, keep on insisting that this whole Panama – 17 Black saga started before his time and so he has no jurisdiction on it? Will the imperative to appear ‘impartial’ given his PN background dampen his curiosity and geld his due diligence?

We don’t know yet. Meanwhile, the wheels of Labour’s bus will continue going round and round, and must never, ever, stop.

Je Suis Alice

Then again, perhaps this government’s looking-glass ethics are themselves simply a reflection of the rest of Maltese society. Who is the cause, who is the effect? Perhaps we are just two parallel mirrors endlessly replicating each other.

Perhaps the lack of truly national furore at the PM’s outrageous statement is not simply a symptom of fatigue or partisanship. Perhaps, the price that Maltese society is paying for dancing with the devil to get rich quick is that it cannot see any more what truly is. It is condemned to never really knowing which side of the mirror it is in. In this schizophrenic self-deception lies its ultimate unravelling.

I close with the wry reflection that Dr Marie Briguglio, economist and environmental campaigner, recently shared publicly, and which I make my own:

“A man dies on the job due to lax health and safety. Someone films him and media airs it. A national discussion ensues about… the filming.

“A politician sets up an offshore. A journalist reveals it

“A national debate ensues about...the journalist.

“A woman is abused by an actor while auditioning. She reports it and media picks up. A national debate ensues about...the woman.”

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece