Raphael Vassallo | Sunday, 30 August 2009

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Blogging while Rome burns

Hello, anybody home? Well, judging by the echo of my own voice reverberating about the dimly-lit corridors, I guess the answer must be no.

As you will no doubt have immediately inferred, I am talking about the very magnificent Auberge D’Aragon in Independence Square, Valletta – across the road from the Anglican cathedral, and facing what I have always assumed is our National Monument to Afternoon Naps (or maybe not, but what else would you call a sculpture representing several unidentified individuals, all snoozing blissfully in the sun?)

In any case: Auberge D’Aragon is a fine example of early 17th century architecture, designed by Girolamo Cassar (unless my tour guide was feeding me the usual tourist bull-crap) and among the very few of Valletta’s historic buildings not to have suffered the indignity of an additional floor, complete with penthouse/washroom-on-the-roof. It now houses the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs, and...

Shhhh! For Heaven’s sake, lower your voice. You might disturb the ghosts of long-dead Spanish aristocrats, as they glide noiselessly through cobwebs, or over an impenetrable layer of dust. Worse still, you might wake the Home Affairs Minister, who has lain undisturbed in his sarcophagus for around half a millennium at least...

Oh, OK, maybe I’m exaggerating somewhat. But still: it is hard to imagine a ministry that ought to be making more noise at the moment, than the one supposedly responsible for the enforcement of law and order in our country. I would have thought the Law Courts reform alone would have kept them all busy as badgers for the next few thousand years. But no: the place is so uncannily quiet it almost reminds me of the Environment Ministry in Zammit Dimech’s time... unless... hang on, wait. What’s that noise, coming from somewhere down the corridor...?

“Click, clack, click.”

“Top, tap, tup.”

What the hell..? And yet it sounds terribly familiar: almost like... yes, like the sound I am making myself, right now at this very second, clicking and clacking away at the coffee-stained keyboard of my ancient, pre-Enlightenment Apple Macintosh...
OK, I must confess that I am now curious. So let’s take a quick peek in at the window and see if we can spot who on earth is...

Oh! Hullo, Carm. Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you there. I sort of assumed you’d be in deep hibernation as usual. But... what exactly are you doing at the computer, if you don’t mind me asking? You see, I have a bet with some friends, that you’re either playing Solitaire, or...

... writing a blog.

Hmm. Excuse me, Carm... not to be rude or anything, but... don’t you have a ministry to run? And not just any old ministry, I might add. Isn’t yours the ministry responsible for (among several other inconsequential matters) this obscure and unfathomable institution known locally as the “Malta Police Force”?

What was that again ? You’re a little busy at the moment? Well, yes, as a former blogger myself I sort of understand. Terribly time-consuming things, blogs. You have to think up something new to write everyday... then keep track of all the old comments... then moderate all the new ones... then post links to your latest update on Facebook... and guess what? After all your hard work, people will still insist on using the word “blogger” to describe any half-wit who posts a comment on the Times’ website.

Yes, Carm: the world is unfair. As for the World Wide Web, you will also find it gets addictive after a while, too. It starts out harmlessly enough, I suppose... but soon you’ll realise that you’re spending far more time updating your blog than seeing to your ministerial responsibilities, Carm... and in the fullness of time, you will be altogether too lost in the blogosphere to bother answering journalists’ questions about such trivialities as allegations of police brutality, and such like nonsense.

Before you know it, you will be so engrossed excogitating new and exciting blog entries (things like: “Why I think the Labour Party really, really really sucks”; or “Why the Nationalist Party deserves to be in power... Forever!”; or “Why Cappuccino served cold is a threat to global democracy...” ) that you won’t even notice when yet another ordinary citizen steps forward, claiming to have been beaten to a pulp at the St Julian’s police station, then charged in court for “assaulting a police officer”, while another dozen officers queue up to commit perjury for their colleagues at the witness stand...

(Which reminds me, Carm: have you heard the latest joke doing the rounds? It goes like this: Q - What’s the difference between maintaining a blog, and spending a night at the St Julian’s police station? A - You get more ‘hits’ at the St Julian’s police station...)

But considering the sheer enormity of the allegations of police misconduct now pouring in from every angle, I would have thought even a committed, born-again blogger such as yourself would find the energy to tear himself away from the keyboard, at least for as long as it takes to read a couple of emails.
I mean honestly, Carm: has it not yet occurred to you that there are other parts of the world out there – including obscure, exotic continents such as “Europe” – where reports of police violence are sort of taken seriously by the minister in charge?

Oh, but don’t mind me, Carm. Oh, no. Don’t let me keep you from the really important things in life... like changing your online profile pic every once in a while; or experimenting with different HTML templates, until you get that really funky, ministerial sort of look...

Meanwhile, in case you ever get stuck for a topic ahead of your next blog entry – and seeing as “threats to global democracy” feature high on the list of your online concerns at the moment – how about blogging about any or all of the following topics? Just a thought...

> Why key police witnesses sometimes need to be accompanied by defence lawyers acting ‘in parte civile’
A funny thing happened on the way to the Law Courts, Carm: two police officers (more details on pages 1 and 5) started out as star witnesses in the case against Claudio Overend (19), accused of violently assaulting the aforesaid. But halfway through the trial, the witnesses suddenly and inexplicably transformed into defendants in their own right, requesting the court to allow them the presence of a defence lawyer.
How did this happen? Simple. Overend’s defence produced a “surprise witness”, who surprised everybody by having attributes big enough to do what very, very few people would willingly do in this country – i.e., take the witness stand against the police. This witness then testified that it was actually the two police officers who violently beat the accused to a pulp, and not the other way around... with the result that the ‘star witnesses’ now have an active and declared interest in the same case they were instrumental in bringing to court in the first place.
So not only are there are now two defence counsels at work in the same trial – one for the defendant (as is only to be expected), and the other for the main prosecution witnesses – but it turns out that the latter two witnesses were also the chief investigators in the case against the former!
No, Carm, this is not the basic plot of a Monty Python movie. It is Maltese law enforcement in action under your stewardship. And do you want to know the really funny thing about it all? Everybody in the entire country seems to think it’s perfectly normal, Carm. So thoroughly have the basic dynamics of justice been perverted in our country, that you can shaft people without their ever noticing..

> Are Police Commissioners above the law?
In the course of the same trial, Magistrate Edwina Grech found herself having to repeat a request to Police Commissioner John Rizzo to produce the results of the internal police investigation into the alleged police beating. Now, why oh why was Mr Rizzo so reluctant to produce this record when first asked? Was he too busy updating his own blog to comply? And more to the point: why was this blatant refusal to obey a direct court order not immediately interpreted as “Contempt of Court” – as it would almost certainly have been interpreted, had it come from you, me, Bobby McGee, or even that court electrician who was so famously imprisoned (by a former chief justice, if I remember right) for failing to fix the air conditioning to Mr Justice’s satisfaction..?

> Why has the Nationalist Party been in power for over 20 years, without ever significantly improving the rights of persons in detention or under police custody?
Actually, never mind, Carm. I’ll leave you to answer this question on your own. After all you’ve been part of the PN all this time, not me... and if you don’t know the reason, well, who on earth possibly could?

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A tragedy foretold