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The latest dispute concerning Ta’ Cenc highlights issues of far graver significance than that of a group being denied ‘permission’ to go for a walk in the countryside. Any citizen can invoke the law to enjoy ‘Everyman’s right’, that is, the unfettered ‘public right of way or access’, irrespective of who owns the surrounding land.
This ‘little local difficulty’ however, is eclipsed by the implications of EU membership predicated on a fully functioning democracy based on ‘the rule of law’ without fear or favour.
One cringes to contemplate Malta’s besmirched reputation among its EU partners given the documented evidence of the police having been abused by this government as political pawns in subverting the rule of law when ordered to forcibly and illegally block public access to ‘Everyman’s Right’ in Ta’ Cenc as recently as 13th August 2005, a scene eerily similar to the atrocity of the Berlin Wall, erected precisely forty-four years earlier, and regarding which President John F. Kennedy pronounced, “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’”
Where therefore, are your freedom and pride?
The Declaration of Rights of the 15th June 1802, printed in Italian on the back of the five liri banknote, expressly rebuts the notion that ‘any man whosoever should exercise personal authority over the liberty of another, given that such power subsists in the law only’. The time has come for Maltese and Gozitan citizens to consider whether to passively accept or dynamically act upon their own response as ‘free men’ to this flagrant violation of their human rights.
As regards ‘what you can do for your country’, local politicians not only monitor newspapers as assiduously as foreign diplomats, but liberally disseminate their e-mail addresses and contact details, especially preceding elections. This is to invite feedback, petitions, instructions and mandates.
They have now received mine. How about yours?
Oisin Jones-Dillon
Xemxija
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