Chris Cardona and proportionality

When people like Chris Cardona lose all sense of proportionality, I really do not expect intelligent men and women to question the behaviour of the victim. Have we not grown one ounce out of the ‘them and us’ mentality?

Dr Cardona’s disproportionate reaction to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s reporting of his alleged activities in a German brothel has brought to the fore the shallowness of the sort of politician that he has allowed himself to be portrayed as being. In trying to protect his reputation wholeheartedly he has failed to place the right of the public to have access to information that holds him to account above his claim for libel.

It is true that the law allows him to seek a precautionary garnishee order to safeguard his right to be paid, should he win his case, but the fact that even lawyers are finding it difficult to remember an instance when such a warrant was sought against a journalist should have been a wise indication that this course of action is not on. It seems that as he had promised his followers so clearly some months ago, he is very willing and determined to use his axe. Not that his axe has brought him any favours this time, since the pen has already proved to be mightier than his axe.

Dr Cardona’s actions are done and executed and he shows no recognition of the disproportionality of his actions, of the cowardice of his axe versus a pen. The exercising of his legal might has resounded terribly badly with those of us who may not necessarily enjoy everything that is written about us but who understand that journalists are there for us, the people, and do not simply have a right to hold politicians to account but actually have a duty to do so.

The fact that social media exploded in favour of the journalist and against the Minister, that for the first time a sizeable amount of money was quickly collected to protect a journalist’s pen and that people who are otherwise not politically engaged did engage in the public outcry, makes the silence of Joseph Muscat even more deafening. This is a Prime Minister whom we have seen covering up for and supporting many of those around him implicated in corruption scandals. His silence on Dr Cardona’s actions – indeed Dr Cardona’s insistence that the Prime Minister knows the A to Z of it and supports him fully – directly implicates Dr Muscat in this vicious stand against journalists.

With the Prime Minister’s already tarnished reputation on how little he respects journalists and how deftly he uses the media to announce what he wants announced but then to escape through back doors, his silence on Dr Cardona’s use of the axe against a pen continues to expose how little Dr Muscat and his government think of the ‘little people’ like you and me. He seems more interested in ensuring that his protégées are not questioned in public debate than in ensuring the rights of us ‘little people’. This imperial attitude of himself and his entourage being above public scrutiny has started to fail him.

And then what of the other members of the Cabinet and the government? Have they all been called to obey once more and to participate this time in an attack on one of the most fundamental basic rights? Where are the liberal voices now? Are they in fact, as I have always assumed, more ‘libertarians’ than ‘liberals’?!

There is a silver lining in all this mess. People have come together. Most have set aside political opinions and personal tiffs, and have recognised that we need to come together to protect our right to know about the actions and behaviour of politicians. And this is not because it makes for good gossip (at times some sleazy jokes too), but because Dr Cardona’s axe has cut through some of the shackles that previously disengaged quite a few from public debate. Thanks, Chris!

There is a silver lining in all this mess. People have come together