Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1315450
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 DECEMBER 2020 Raphael Vassallo OPINION It goes (quite literally) without saying… A couple of months ago, I wrote an article defending the public inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder from criticism – coming from Glenn Bedding- field, at the time – along the lines that it had 'degenerated in- to a political exercise'. In a nutshell, my argument was… yeah, well, that was all along the whole point. The in- quiry's terms of reference were precisely "[to determine] wheth- er any wrongful action or omis- sion by, or within, any State enti- ty facilitated the assassination or failed to prevent it"… so it sort of stands to reason that the same inquiry would inevitably delve into the responsibilities of the State (in which government - er- go, 'politics' – happens to play a rather large part). And yet… what do you know? Notwithstanding my painstaking efforts to clarify the situation… Joseph Muscat went ahead and resuscitated precisely the same criticism in his testimony before the inquiry last Friday. (I mean, honestly: what is even the point of publicly debunking flawed ar- guments… if the people making those arguments just… never… goddamn… LISTEN?!) There: been meaning to get that off my chest that since Sep- tember 24… But in any case: in light of Mus- cat's testimony, I decided to go back and have another look at that same article… and I now realise that I may have left out a small (but rather important) detail. Not that it changes the sub- stance of the above argument in any way; but it dawned on me that the significance of the Daphne Caruana Galizia pub- lic inquiry goes far beyond its (undeniably important) role in establishing the full truth about this particular case. I stand to be corrected, of course: but to the best of my knowledge, it also represents the only example of any form of public investigation, ever having been held at all, into the ques- tion of whether or not the State is indeed fulfilling all its own obligations and responsibilities … not just with regard to Daph- ne's murder: but in all spheres, everywhere. Now: with some difficulty, I will resist the temptation to meander off into an endless di- gression about what those obli- gations even are, and how they originally came about – because that would take us all the way back to the Paleolithic Era: when a certain Ugga first started real- izing (probably after observing a colony of ants for too long) that… 'heck, maybe we, too need some kind of organised struc- ture to keep ourselves in check: if nothing else, to prevent us from clubbing each other to ex- tinction…' … but I don't have time for that right now. So let's just say that: yes, around 250,000 years of so- cietal development have landed us with a social contract, that supposedly binds both parties – governors and governed alike – to certain basic contractual ob- ligations (and failure to observe those regulations, by one party or the other, can – and very of- ten does – result in 'avoidable death'). But while the community's role in maintaining that social order is indeed called into question, all the time – it's the reason we have such things as 'laws', 'law enforcement agencies', 'law- courts', 'prions', etc. – well… how often do we hold the State to the same level of scrutiny? Coming back to those terms of reference, for instance: without in any way detracting from the importance of applying them to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia - a case which certain- ly warrants all the attention it is being given: not just because of the hideous nature of the crime itself, but also because of its weighty implications for a whole host of other fundamen- tal issues: freedom of expression, State-capture of national insti- tutions… even Malta's interna- tional reputation, if it comes to it… No, without even remotely questioning any of that: the same terms of reference could also be made to apply to other mysteri- ous (or otherwise unexplained) deaths, which likewise call into question the role and possible responsibility of the State. Like, for instance, the 11-or-so fatalities recorded at Corradino Correctional Facility over the past two years… But first, in the interest of pre-empting some of the crit- icism this article will no doubt attract: I'm not bringing it up now to detract attention from the ongoing public inquiry. Quite the contrary, in fact. It may admittedly be an irrelevant detail: but there is no doubt in my mind – none whatsoev- er – that Daphne herself would be writing about those prison deaths, if she were still alive to- day. It's a subject she always took very seriously indeed: yes, even when the unexplained deaths occurred under a Nationalist ad- ministration. So all things considered, I feel entirely justified in extending at least a couple of the same con- cerns about Daphne's murder, to those other (otherwise unre- lated) fatalities; also because… well, they are not entirely 'unre- lated', either. The death of a single Corrad- ino inmate (not to mention the deaths of around a dozen, within the space of 24 months) may not shake the country to its founda- tions, quite in the same way as the bomb that blew up Daph- ne did in 2017. And it probably shouldn't, either. But, where there is room to ar- gue about the State's precise re- sponsibility for what happened in the case of Daphne's murder – that is, indeed the whole point of the public inquiry – there can be no corresponding doubt with regard to those 11 dead prison- ers… or even, for that matter, the 760-odd human beings that make up Malta's (living) prison population. Leaving aside that the Human Rights Charter - minus the 'right to liberty', naturally - happens to apply to them, too (a point that is seems to be overlooked with disturbing frequency in this country)… the State's responsi- bility is in this case not just in- disputable… but thunderingly self-evident, too. Unlike almost any other cate- gory of human being - including the most vulnerable among us - a prison inmate depends wholly and exclusively on the State, and nothing but the State, for even the most fundamental of human needs: food, clothing, shelter, safety… and also basic health- care. And yet – while we (right- ly) hold a public inquiry when a journalist is blown up in her car… not only is there no cor- responding inquiry into an apparent epidemic of sudden, unexplained deaths at Malta's only prison: but the (confiden- tial) magisterial inquiries that so far have been conducted into each individual fatality – wheth- er concluded or otherwise - still remain under wraps to this day. Meanwhile, government is stolidly refusing to divulge the contents of those reports; in- cluding, inter alia, the autopsy results… which would at least establish the precise cause of those deaths: a rather important first step, I would have thought, towards determining: a) whether or not any of those fatalities could have been 'avoid- ed', and; b) whether or not 'any State entity' – in this case, most likely the prison management – may have been guilty of 'any wrong- ful action or omission [which] facilitated the [death]'. As things stand, however, all we have to go on are Home Affairs Minister Byron Camill- eri's personal reassurances that – having been the only one to actually read the conclusions of the magisterial inquiries - there was nothing to be remotely sus- picious or alarmist about. "The first question I ask," he