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MALTATODAY 18 June 2023

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YOU'VE got to hand it to Charles Dickens, though. He may have written some of the most 'morally edifying' nov- els of his generation – from a Victorian perspective, anyway – but he somehow always in- stilled a certain level of basic human decency, into even his most nefarious villains. Well... not always, perhaps. There is certainly nothing remotely 'decent' about Bill Sykes, for instance (whose bru- tal murder of Nancy made me regret reading even an abridged version of 'Oliver Twist', aged around nine...) What about Fagin, howev- er? A criminal so utterly de- praved, and so devoid of any scruples whatsoever, that he even 'grooms' innocent little street-children, into becoming hardened criminals...? Ah, but let's face it: that's not the impression you actually get of Fagin, from reading the book. Because even if all that is perfectly true (and Dickens doesn't even try to 'sugar-coat' it, all that much); Fagin still re- mains around the only charac- ter, in the entire novel, who al- so doubles up as something of a 'father figure', to those same street-urchins. Not only does he offer them a roof over the heads, and food on the table (without them even having to 'ask for more'...) but he also brings laughter in- to Oliver's otherwise miserable life: probably, for the first time ever. And it doesn't help, of course, that all the other characters (and institutions) that were SUPPOSED to do all that, for the children in their care, all turn out to be lacking in pre- cisely those same characteris- tics: 'compassion', 'tenderness', 'affection'... in a nutshell, 'basic human decency.' Yet it still falls to a represent- ative of those same, indefen- sible institutions (Bumble the Beadle: not the most villainous character, perhaps; but cer- tainly, the least likeable) to ut- ter the single most memorable line, in the entire novel. Confronted by the fact that Victorian law actally 'held a man to be responsible for the actions of his wife', he blurts out: "If the law supposes that... the law is a ass! [sic] A idiot! [sic] If that's the eye of the law, the law's a bachelor; and the worse I may wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experi- ence — by EXPERIENCE!" Honestly, though: who, in his hearts of hearts, cannot fully sympathise with the hapless Mr Bumble, at that precise instant? And who can possibly bring themselves to disagree with him, when he makes the point (in different words), that... what 'experience' are these id- iotic laws even based on, to be- gin with? What, in a word, does the Law even 'know', about the issues it is supposedly regulat- ing? Make no mistake: Mr Bum- ble was onto something, there. Which, of course, brings me directly to the little legal is- sue that seems to have gotten everyone's knickers in a twist, all of a sudden. That is to say: the fact that Pastor Gordon John Manche has now filed THREE (3) criminal com- plaints against comedians/peo- ple in showbiz, over the grave crime of (quite literally) 'calling him names'... ...and – even more bizarrely – the Malta Police Force has CHOSEN to actually investi- gate all three of those manifest- ly vexatious complaints... and even to press criminal charg- es against those 'criminals', in court! Now: in case you're wondering why I placed so much emphasis on the word 'CHOSEN'... well, it's because there seems to be this incredibly widespread mis- conception, out there – shared by, among others, both Home Affairs Minister Byron Camill- eri, and Justice Minister Ow- en Bonnici – that the police are somehow 'constrained' to take action, on each individual criminal report that they ever receive (or in other words: they have no actual 'CHOICE', but to prosecute in all such cases). Sorry to have to ask, but... where do people even get such absurd ideas from, anyway? And what do they even mean, by 'the police have no choice', when it comes to deciding which criminal complants are actually worth investigating... and which are (very evidently) not? Of course, the police have a 'choice'! And I can very easily demonstrate this right now, if I really wanted to... by simply walking down to the nearest police station (which happens to be the Msida one), and filing a criminal complaint against... well, pretty much anyone who has ever 'insulted me': ever, at any point in the recent past. [Note: I won't mention names, because... the list is quite long, you know]. But let's be serious, here. What do you think would really happen, if I were to actually do something like that – and re- port, say, my next-door neigh- bour, for calling me 'an asshole' as we walked past each other in the street the other day? There can be doubt about it whatsoever, can there? Not only would the police instantly dismiss my complaint, without so much as even a micro-sec- ond's hesitation... but they would probably send me, too, flying bodily out of the Msida station: headlong into the mid- dle of Rue D'Argens... And quite rightly, I hasten to add. Because let's face it: if they were to actually 'investigate' even just a single complaint, of that particular nature - in a country where 'insulting other people' seems to have become something of a 'national pas- time', of late – I mean, do I even need to go on? It would be the equivalent of 'flinging the floodgates wide open', to an unstoppable del- uge of similar, idiotic police reports in future... at a time when the police themselves are already complaining, that they don't have enough 'manpower' to deal with even the more se- rious crimes that occasionally get reported (look under 'Gau- ci, Bernice' for further details). And yet, when Pastor Gor- don John Manche nonchalant- ly walked into a police station – which he must have done, at one point – to file a crim- inal repoirt that is not just similar, but 'identical' to the ficitious one I have just de- cribed... not only did the police take this laughable complaint with all the seriousness that they should have (but evident- ly didn't) reserved for Bernice Gauci's reports about being the target of DEATH-THREATS, no less... ... but, unaccountably, so did the law-courts! Because as far as I am aware, it takes more than just a 'police arraignment', for any given case to actually wind up in court. No, it actu- ally has to be 'approved', by the sitting magistrate before whom the case is presented (that is, in fact, the whole point of the 'compilation-of-evidence stage': to determine whether there is enough evidence, for any given case to actually go ahead.) So at this level, at least: there can be no question about it whatsoever. Unlike the police – where there is still room to ar- gue (however unconvincingly) that their precise responsibili- ties are at best 'unclear' – the law-courts certainly DO have the right to decide, at their own discretion, whether or not a case actually warrants being tried, at all. And in all three of the above-mentioned cases: Mal- ta's law-courts CHOSE to let the prosecution go ahead... even though, each and every single time, those magistrates could very easily have 'chosen' another option: i.e., to simply 'throw those cases out of court' maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 JUNE 2023 10 OPINION The law is an ass(hole)! Raphael Vassallo

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