Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/224217
20 Opinion maltatoday, SUNDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2013 To slink or not to slink O K, first things first. Some of you may have noticed that I haven't written in a while now. This is in fact my first newspaper article in around four weeks: and seeing as the last one I wrote contained a rather glaring hint at imminent retirement on my part, it was perhaps inevitable that I would be privately asked whether I'd thrown in the towel altogether. The short answer to that is 'no', but oddly enough the longer answer turns out to be slightly harder to articulate. I would be lying if I claimed that the thought hadn't even crossed my mind. Oh, it crossed my mind all right. In the same way (and arguably for the same reason) that the chicken crossed the road... again and again and again . And yes, the Daniel Holmes judgment played a very large part in all such ruminations. I don't intend to dwell too much on that one case – plenty more has happened in the meantime, including some truly shocking court judgments that fly in the face of the heavyhandedness meted to Holmes – but there does come a point when you have to ask yourself: why, exactly, do you do what you do? Raphael Vassallo In my case, part of the answer involves a brief revisiting of the forces at work behind this particular injustice, and The Perfect Gift this Christmas An annual subscription to the Maltatoday digital edition and a free book only €50.00 Subscribe now at www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/maltatodayepaper For more information call 21382741 ext. 113 or email subscriptions@mediatoday.com.mt – if you'll allow me the selfindulgence – my own sense of culpability for what happened as a consequence. So like Doctor Who, we shall have to hop into the Tardis for a brief flit back in time to around five weeks ago, when Holmes' sentence was confirmed by the court of appeal. Holmes had been convicted of trafficking cannabis and sentenced to 10 and a half years and a fine of €23,000. He went on to appeal against the severity of the sentence... and not against the verdict itself (he had, after all, registered a guilty plea). This is a crucial point upon which all subsequent considerations hinge. Given the nature of the appeal, the court's job was clearly to determine whether the circumstances of the case warranted a 10year sentence. In other words, whether the sentence was, in fact, just... and not whether it was merely legal. I need hardly add that the two issues are not interchangeable. There is simply no end to the list of things that are, were and will always be perfectly legal but at the same time monstrously unjust. A certain election result in 1981 immediately springs to mind, and that's without even thinking too hard. And yet, obvious as this distinction seems to be to everyone else, our Courts of Justice are clearly unaware of its existence. Throughout their ruling, the three judges took great pains to stress that they were concerned strictly with the legality of the sentence, and not with its justice at all. Their entire argumentation revolves around the fact that Lawrence Quintano's original sentence was 'well within the parameters of the law' – even though no one had ever contested that fact – and did not even once pause to consider There is simply no end to the list of things that are, were and will always be perfectly legal but also monstrously unjust