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	Roamer’s Column Times of Malta October 9, 2011 http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111009/opinion/Roamer-s-column.388332 Things have soured between Lou Bondi and the victims of sexual abuse to the extent that the former has washed his hands of the latter. As relations ’twixt one and the others gave every impression of being hunky-dory up to the day of the verdict that found two clerics guilty of pederast activity; as Lawrence Grech has sniped and snapped at Bondi for his decision, it is in the natural order of things that people expect Bondi to give his side of the story, to which a number of questions now attach. The heels of justice grind exceedingly slow in Malta, one reason why magistrates and judges boycotting anything should impress nobody A fortnight ago and in the wake of the decision taken by the Archbishop to dismiss the idea of financial compensation I did not remark about the merits or demerits of that decision but asked why these talks took place at all “when the case remains self-evidently sub judice?” For reasons that escape me, the very idea of bringing up the sub judice clause was regarded by some as gobbledygook; this was a questionable rush to judgment. As the story continues to unfold and it will, Bondi-willing and Grech-insisting, it is surely relevant to make the observation that once the case is under appeal there is the chance that the appeal court will overturn the magistrate’s verdict – ask the judge and jury at the second Amanda Knox trial – and the chance that it will not. No assumption can be made in favour of either case; but one thing is for certain: either the guilty verdict will be confirmed or it will not. The possibility of the latter should have precluded any talks on financial compensation at this stage and the Archbishop was wrongly advised to enter any such discussion at this stage. To me this is blindingly self-evident and for why? Suppose the appeal were successful and suppose the Archbishop had agreed to financial compensation of victims, one of whom, two of whom, any number of whom were judged by the appeal court not to be victims, what a right silly mess that would be. Again, I say, the Archbishop was wrongly advised; nor was he helped by the public declaration surprisingly made by Mgr Charles Scicluna, probably the best informed Vatican official on the issue of clerical sexual abuse. This saga has still some way to run, some think a considerable way. The story waits to unfold still further at the appeal trial; it is in the interest of all, plaintiffs, defendants, the public and justice above all else, that the latter is swiftly carried out. BBC boobs – again This time in its coverage of Poland’s economic performance, which it described in a report last Friday as the only one in the EU that has shown resilience during the current crisis. The BBC may not have heard about Malta – perhaps the finance ministry can introduce us to the Corporation. Without for a moment suggesting that Poland has not performed extremely well – it has when compared with so many ailing economies puncturing the EU and the eurozone – it is not the only one. Take Malta to date and the finance minister at this word. Six-thousand new jobs were created during the past 12 months and the number of unemployed fell by 1,000. That sounds like quite an achievement where most everywhere else employment fell and unemployment rose, in some cases, alarmingly. His audience will have relished the news that during the first half of 2011 exports had risen by an astounding 54 per cent, productivity at more than twice the median rate of the EU. Employment in the financial sector rose to 10,000. More telling, 72 per cent of the workforce is employed in the private sector – creating wealth. And the inflation rate stands at two per cent (five per cent in the UK), which is good news in my backyard. Not bad; not bad at all; hell, in the circumstances we live in, excellent. Still, fingers crossed; we are still some way from safety. The budget Tonio Fenech told a working breakfast last week that he will present in three, four weeks’ time will focus on strengthening the pillars of the economy and the fiscal environment with a view to bringing the deficit down to two per cent next year. Why do I have this amusing image of the man, preparing himself for beddy-byes, spectacles removed, kneeling down at the end of another stressful day, praying that nothing will go bump between now and Budget Day and beyond. And with a soupcon of guilt, for he knows he should not wish his enemies ill, dear Lord, but if things have to go bump let them go bumpity on the Labour benches. Who would have thought? Was a time when Brits, Anglo-Saxon to their fingertips, would indulge in conversation with hands splendidly under control, body language similarly re­strained, declining the vulgar temptation to gesticulate that southern Europeans fall prey to and, in the case of Her Majesty the Queen, only her lips move and even then almost imperceptibly; was a time when BBC newscasters, anchormen and anchorwomen would present the news, conduct an interview, with maddening detachment. Was a time... Today, that almost sphinx-like approach is no longer fashionable; our friends in Britain have taken up European habits, more specifically, southern European habits. The attractive Zeinab Bedawi, who tells BBC viewers that she is Zeinab Bedawi two or three times during a news programme in case her identity slipped their memory, gesticulates something terrible; her limbs in a state of perpetual motion;Nick Gowon and others havefollowed suit. But it is not only Bedawi and co. who wave their way through a programme like Sicilian restaurateurs. Politicians, David Cameron for one, Nick Clegg for another, employ hand gestures like nobody’s business, almost as if they were brought up in Naples, or Marseilles, or Athens – or Malta. In fairness, politicians have always had this tendency, raising their left hand, ditto their right hand as if in some regard for balance; both hands when the mood takes them, and it often does, pointing fingers skywards, earthwards, any-which-waywards to emphasise a point. Perhaps the rough-house of football has rubbed off on them, for in that pit of anger, triumph and defeat, what gestures do we not witness? Truth is, bitter though this may be, the Brits have become southern Europeans; sang froid has flipped, its coolness taken over by sang chaud. This may be painful to the susceptibilities of Norman Tebbit, treacherous in the eyes of Margaret Thatcher, sweet music to Ken Clarke, discordant stuff to Boris Johnson, a balming form of requiem for Edward Heath but true nonetheless. And we, of course, mustwelcome this development with – what else? – arms flung outwards. Here is a great, cultural victory over an island-nation thathas spent its history determinedly outside Europe, inside it only when its interests were seen to be threatened, and were, by a Corsican-turned-Emperor in the 19th century and a corporal-turned Fuhrer in the 20th, latterly the European Union. Of cliches and justice It has become a cliche to hold a press conference criticising, say, the minister responsible for the environment, outside the building where said minister resides and works. If the victims of sexual abuse have something critical to say about any decision taken with which they disagree, off they go to spout their bit outside the Archbishop’s Curia. Shadows hold forth outside Castille, outside anywhere as long as there is room for a lone TV camera, or a couple of reporters. Wonder outside which building an aggrieved president of a tiddly-winks club will stand to protest the absence of funding for Mriehel at the next international championship? In the case of a damaged bridge in Sliema, Cyrus Engerer, once a Nationalist councillor, turned Independent, now Labour Party candidate, selected to be photographed in the vicinity of the bridge. Bridge apart, he seems to have recovered from the tiff with his partner, who recently withdrew charges he instituted against Engerer. His appearance reminded everybody about the case andthe stage reached in criminalproceedings. I ask because the Leader of the Opposition, somewhat rashly, opened wide his arms to Engerer when Engerer chucked his membership of the Nationalist Party and opted to take up arms against it from, I suspect, the ample if balled-up bosom of the Labour Party. Within those arms the new candidate is now wrapped; as evidenced in last week’s Bondiplus. The heels of justice grind exceedingly slow in Malta, one reason why magistrates and judges boycotting anything, let alone two State occasions, should impress nobody. Once a case kicks off, the longer and more tedious haul begins; I mean deferments world without end, potential contempt of court by witnesses failing to turn up, ditto lawyers busy up the corridor calling for conviction a case of eviction. Point is it is only mete and just that matters are brought to a head, for the sake of Engerer and for the Labour Party which has adopted him. PS. The sickening and slow execution of a boxer led to its exterminator receiving a ˆ20,000 fine and a nine-month jail sentence. The signal sent out by the court was unmistakeable; the punishment meted out greeted enthusiastically by animal welfare groups and others; but was it not overly OTT? From a court reporter’s notebook God’s truth; well, let’s not go overboard but this Q&A really took place. Attorney: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he? Witness: He’s 20, much like your IQ.
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