Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/584253
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2015 25 Opinion/Letters Bring it on… Meritocracy revisited at Identity Malta Reference is made to your editorial published in MaltaToday on the 4 October titled 'Meritocracy: a blatantly forgotten promise'. I served as Director and Land Registrar within the Land and Public Registry Division between September 2010 and December 2013. As in many headship positions my contract was for a three-year period and therefore expired in September 2013. In that period, I applied for another headship position – that of Chief Notary to government which is one of the most important roles within the public service. This particular position requires that the person chosen has to be a notary with managerial experi- ence. In my case I fully satisfied these requisites. Moreover, besides my law qualifications I also possess a Master's Degree in Public Policy and Magister Iuris in International Law. I also followed several courses in management, training and as- sessment. I was appointed to the post of Chief Notary to government in 2014 and immediately embarked on a number of reforms, not least the implementation of new IT solutions and the upgrading of the Notarial Archives (with the ever- green assistance of Dr Joan Abela and her volunteers) which for years has been left crying for investment. I have found the full, unfettering support of the Ministry for Justice since I took this highly sensitive and important post. In view of the above I strongly believe that your article is unjusti- fied as in my case it can be clearly seen that meritocracy was the reason for me to be chosen for this prestigious post. Dr Keith Francis German Chief Notary and Keeper of Notarial Archives Editorial note: Dr German has misunderstood our editorial. It was the replacements of registry directors (Lands, public, and other identity management posts) that were not subject to a meritocratic appointment. MaltaToday has shown in a previous report that the departures of experienced civil servants from identity manage- ment offices, like Dr German's, were replaced by politically appointed 'persons-of-trust' who did not have the necessary skills of public sector managers like Dr German. LSA support remains crucial in education With reference to your article of 7 October 2015, 'MUT boss calls for end to parental veto on special needs education', it is important to clarify that the implication made by MUT president Kevin Bonello that not all children with impair- ments can be included in main- stream education is not one which the National Commission for People with a Disability (KNPD) supports. Whilst it is not the easiest route, KNPD believes that the inclu- sion of all children with diverse impairments is a goal that must be achieved. The inclusion of these children has been in place in the Maltese education system from the 1990s. There is however a concern that these children are being physi- cally integrated into mainstream classrooms without inclusion tak- ing place. The inclusion of these children with differing attainment levels means that it is not possible to measure all children with the same yardstick. One of the problems seems to be with the assessment of children who may require a Learning Support Assistant. This results in many children being given a one- to-one LSA when they do not need one, whilst other children who do require the services of a one-to- one LSA, to be fully included in the classroom setting, are not being awarded an LSA. The rise in statemented children may be a result of parents feel- ing that their children are not achieving the expected levels of attainment in comparison to their peers, and therefore looking for an explanation through medical assessment. It could be the case that the child simply finds the work harder to comprehend than their peers, a situation which may reverse itself given more time. The fact that all children, whether they have an impairment or not, learn at different rates is something that must be considered more carefully when assessing whether a child needs an LSA to assist them in the educational setting. An LSA is required to support and assist the child in following the curriculum which is being taught in the classroom, in line with their attainment abilities. It is important that the child is not over-reliant on the LSA to a degree which reduces their ability to learn independently, but is instead sup- ported to achieve the maximum educational level they are able to achieve. It is also important that teachers are given the support to use dif- ferent methods of teaching which are accessible to children with all levels of ability. The classroom needs to be a flexible environment which caters for the educational requirements of all children. It is the correct level of sup- port offered by the LSA and the teacher, which will allow the child to be fully included in the classroom; too little support will lead to frustration and too much support will lead to over depend- ency. A fine balance that is unique to each child must be found in order to secure inclusion in the classroom. Each child must be given the opportunity to learn the same cur- riculum to the best of their abil- ity to ensure that these children are fully included and not just physically integrated into the same classroom as their non disabled peers. Christian Camilleri Assistant Manager (awareness raising) KNPD this also makes Lawrence Gonzi the man without whom legal divorce would simply not be possible in Malta today. So if any of you reading this have successfully filed for a divorce since legislation was introduced… well, you have none other than Gonzi to thank for it. Even so, this spectacular irony seems to be completely lost on the man himself... though to be fair, it is not clear whether he personally endorses the referendum idea, or whether he just supports the cause for a ban on embryo freezing. Still, no matter: if it's a referendum these people want… sure, why not? Let's go for it. Just don't come crying afterwards, if it goes the same way as all the others did… In the meantime: what sort of referendum would you prefer? There are two options available (as we should all know by heart, given the events of recent years): the 'consultative' referendum, called by the government when it feels it doesn't have a clear electoral mandate on any given topic; and the 'abrogative' referendum, which legally binds government to remove existing laws. I think we can safely rule out the former for the time being. Unless, of course, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat repeats Gonzi's tragic mistake of 2010, and utters some poorly-thought remark that ultimately commits him to holding one. And hey, you never know: Muscat has imitated Gonzi in all sorts of other areas. He has proceeded with controversial ODZ projects in the face of enormous resistance… when only a few years ago he had criticised Gonzi for doing the same… so why not imitate Gonzi's other mistakes, too? At least it would be consistent… All the same: it is kind of unlikely really. Muscat already has trouble enough with two unruly backbenchers… which, come to think of it, is another habit he seems to have picked up from his predecessor. It would be rash of him indeed, to also take on the electorate when there is no legal compulsion of any kind to do so. This leaves us with the abrogative referendum, used for the first and only time in the case of spring hunting… and to date, it remains the only way to force a government to hold a referendum against its will. In this case, any referendum will have to wait until there actually is a law to be repealed. And it would have to involve a separate petition (on top of the one for the Constitutional amendment) with at least 40,000 signatures. It would be interesting to see if the signatories to both petitions ending up being the same. This is, in fact, the crux of the entire matter, and the single reason why a referendum on embryo freezing might backfire spectacularly, if it ever gets to be held at all. Ever since this embryo freezing kerfuffle first started, there has been a concerted, untiring effort to deliberately conflate the issue with that of therapeutic abortion – something which, Constitutional amendment or no Constitutional amendment, is already illegal in Malta. We heard classic examples of this during this week's press conference: Dr Miriam Sciberras [chair of the MLN] told us that "the introduction of embryo freezing, surrogacy and spermicide [!] and egg donation, would open the door to abortion". Separately, Gonzi reaffirmed that "embryo freezing is equivalent to abortion". Both statements are at best disingenuous. Not only are the two issues completely different… but public attitudes towards them are completely different, too. I am the first to admit that the pro-life movement is probably correct in its assumption of an overwhelming majority against abortion in Malta. But by no means does it follow that the same majority would also oppose embryo freezing. If there is a fundamental difference between these issues, it is that embryo freezing forms part of the wider health issue concerning assisted fertility treatment. (IVF remains the best-known example of such technologies, so I'll stick to that acronym even if it doesn't cover all medical aspects of infertility). 'Abortion', on the other hand, is a very broad umbrella term applied to the termination of any pregnancy, under any circumstance whatsoever (including natural miscarriage). Even the use of the word by the pro-life lobby has all along been inaccurate: it is narrowed down to describe only one small facet of its broader meaning – the termination of a pregnancy by direct medical intervention – while all along overlooking natural, spontaneous abortions that occur in nature all the time. And within this restricted and emotionally charged misuse of the word, there is an additional distortion. 'Abortion' is used to describe only the wilful termination of unwanted pregnancies for purely pragmatic reasons. This altogether excludes the vast category of abortions necessitated for health reasons… sometimes extending to life- saving interventions. But even this glib reduction of such a complex reality to a mindless, automated soundbite… even this simply pales into insignificance compared to the latest paradox to swim into view. Consider the irony for a second. The word 'abortion' is now being applied to a medical technology that has, as its ultimate aim, the creation of new life… in cases where, without such intervention, there can be none. Makes you wonder what these people think being 'pro-life' actually means. Here they all are, flying the 'pro-life'; flag while actively seeking to deprive untold numbers of unviable infants of an actual stab at life… a stab that is made possible only thanks to medical technology, and certainly not to anything these 'pro-lifers' can offer themselves. As for the other assertion, repeated almost as if it were a mathematical formula, that 'Embryo Freezing = Abortion'… I won't deny that embryo freezing raises long-term questions, primarily concerning storage. But Gonzi is clearly misinformed, if he thinks that freezing an embryo is automatically equivalent to destroying it. It bears mentioning, too, that the word 'embryo' – though used correctly – actually refers to life at an entirely molecular level. I point this out because no one in this debate has ever spared a thought for the untold millions of other newly fertilised ova that get aborted all the time, when couples try endlessly to have children without success. Infertility works in more ways that the obvious, you know. In many cases, fertilisation will indeed take place… but the body will spontaneously reject the ovum as 'foreign tissue'. IVF sidesteps that problem by fertilising the ovum outside the womb, and implanting it back in at a later, more developed stage. Indirectly, this means that many couples resorting to IVF would actually 'abort' far more often without the treatment, than with it. Ironically, then, limiting the success of IVF could well translate into the destruction of infinitely more human embryos, than were ever frozen (not killed) in the process. Ultimately, however, there is another factor that might conceivably result in a nasty surprise for the pro-life lobby, if it is ever granted the thing it so unwisely wishes for. As it demonstrated with divorce, the Maltese electorate is far likelier to empathise with the plight of childless couples, rather than with absurd moral fantasies that manifestly fly in the face of reality. Then as now, it would be delusional to act on the presumption of widespread national support. And yet here we are again, faced with another lobby- group deluded enough to believe it actually speaks on behalf of some moral majority