Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1491153
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 29 JANUARY 2023 OPINION 5 Saviour Balzan FOR years now we have been accustomed to treating the Maltese judiciary with kid's gloves – treating them with the respect they deserve as an inde- pendent institution. In a certain sense, when respect turns to obsequiousness, the temptation to consider them as simply un- touchables or beyond reproach, can also have its undesirable consequences. Judicial decisions, even as they traverse the circuitous journey from one court of inquiry to appeal to supreme and back, are – the people accept – sa- cred and faultless. That is my view as well. Irrespective of the histories and even personal bag- gage of the people on the bench, I believe that any decision or judicial reasoning can always be questioned and challenged within the framework of rule of law of course, through the exhaustion of all judicial reme- dies. It is one thing having good judges and magistrates. That is a discussion on its own. But it is clear that society will keep suf- fering the brunt of having hun- dreds of magisterial and other type of judicial inquiries going back years, which will never be resolved in due course. Over the last years, work- ing conditions and salaries for the judiciary and magistrature have been improved, but many will complain that the need for more facilities and logistical support never ceases. The real travesty of justice is the mara- thon towards the resolution of the magisterial inquiries and other compilations of evidence, or juries that are yet to be heard about crimes committed two decades earlier. This record is appalling. And this situation is not only confined to the ordinary magis- terial inquiries we hear about. It also includes a long list of un- resolved inquiries about work- place deaths, of tragic fatalities that mainly concern foreign victims, sacrificed in the name of expeditious and deadly oc- cupational set-ups. That speaks volumes about how some peo- ple matter more than others. In others words, it appears that it make a difference if the deceased person is Maltese or foreigner – nobody misses a refugee whose life was ended in a two-storey construction drop. Seems there is second-class even in magisterial inquiries. As we speak, legislation is being pushed to encourage inquiring magistrates to work with the occupational health and safety authority on such cases. It is clear that a judiciary with its plate full, and a legal sys- tem in which magistrates do many jobs at once, a country that lacks a system of inquir- ing magistrates that can occupy themselves with specific crimes and special tribunals, means the status quo will never be broken. So, if someone thinks that al- lowing magistrates to rest on their laurels while inquiries are kept 'open' on end with hand- somely-paid experts irrespec- tive of laziness or incompetence is something to be proud of... well, think again. Those fami- lies who have waited for years to know more about the tragic event and death that caused the death of their loved ones, have had to wait too long by the time the conclusions surface – and then it is too late to do anything. Magistrates rightly complain that they do not have the re- sources to handle their back- logs. But nothing still justifies the backlog. Justice minister Jonathan Attard thinks it is time to raise hell about the efficacy of the magistrature. But ultimately it is him who must address this situation. The Maltese judiciary cannot complain of political in- terference, and it is very much a body governed by itself. So it is clear that the Maltese government must start con- sidering the appointment of specialised magistrates who carry out specific inquiries, on specific crimes in which effi- cient resolutions are necessary – from occupational deaths, to high-level corruption. There must be political will, firstly from the government; and also, to a certain extent, by the personalities that become inquiring magistrates with a sense of duty to resolve such crimes. Everyone in public service should be held accountable – even the judiciary – and the Bench should be part of a more open, public debate about the efficiency of the Maltese legal system and the courts. For the wings of a dove The recent debate over an ex- hibition by the Kaċċaturi San Ubertu in schools has ignored one important argument. What hunters are trying to say and San Ubertu's especially, is that there is room for hunting – most especially for turtle doves. That's because the KSU keeps arguing that hunting in Spring is a legitimate past-time, even when Malta faces imminent infringement procedures and penalties from the European Court of Justice. It is amazing to consider that while the European Union de- signed the Birds Directive in 1979 as a law that protects bi- odiversity in Spring, when birds are migrating back to the north to procreate, the Maltese educa- tion department in Gozo thinks it is legitimate to promote the culture of killing birds. KSU seems to think it is right in promoting 'legal' hunting (as opposed to what: poaching?) because BirdLife is occupied in promoting its conservationist activities in schools. The false equivalence is galling, because it also fails to capture what the real fight on hunting birds in Malta is about. It is not only about upholding what the Birds Directive pro- tects, or the fight to conserve bi- odiversity against a backdrop of the turtle dove being recognised as endangered by the IUCN; it is ultimately a tussle between a lobby of aggressive campaigners – the Maltese hunting fraterni- ty – which has kept the political class to ransom for decades. On- ly now that both Labour and the Nationalists are enjoying their Stockholm syndrome and relish appearing side by side with the hunting lobbies. Clearly, it is for that reason that the KSU exhi- bition is being sponsored by the Gozo ministry (also the min- istry that regulates hunting); what is surprising is that the ed- ucation directorate in Gozo was so accommodating about it. Are there no standards about what can take place within a school's perimeter or some sensitivity about the lobbies that are being welcomed into a school? Thankfully, the Malta Union of Teachers was there with an unequivocal statement on the San Ubertu exhibition: it does not approve. And with good reason, because every argument in the book for the San Ubertu hunters goes against the teach- ing and educational projects in schools. You do not need to allow San Ubertu in the schools to help children understand how bad hunting is – take students out in the countryside and let them watch up close the impact of hunting in the countryside in the early hours of the day, with some protective cloth- ing of course, for fear of the falling pellets, and ear-plugs against the blasphemy of hunt- ers claiming the countryside to themselves as the knights of St Hubert shoot and kill birds to their delight. Waiting for justice