When Members of Parliament are opportunists, rent-seekers and grifters who are fighting for their own survival they literally need to fight to stay in government to keep getting paid as their alternative is to lose their status and financial position. When politicians are in such a situation where they are focused exclusively and solely on their survival and their corruption they will not contribute anything of value to our society. Instead, they will probably wreck it. We are going through such a process today with Labour wrecking our environment, our public finances, our rule of law and even our legal code. Labour’s method of winning the election is by literally buying out votes through appeasing special interest groups and doling out cheques to everyone on the eve of the election.
In its attempt to win over the youth vote, Labour has recently passed a new law that supposedly partially decriminalises the personal use of marijuana. There was only one small problem with this reform which was lauded by the cannabis lobby and Labour alike as a new step-forward: the government didn’t reform the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, they only passed a new law which went into direct conflict with the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance effectively rendering their reform useless. The result is that a medical doctor servicing patients with medical marijuana has been arraigned to court over the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.
It should have been obvious to the experts drafting and lobbying for this law that any drug reform has to necessarily come with the abrogation of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance and its replacement with a new and more progressive law. Any reform which does not address the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance will defeat its purpose and a legal technician would have said this at the outset. Why does Labour want to introduce a drug reform without changing the Dangerous Ordinance? Because they don’t really care and they are not interested in making a drug reform; what matters to them is to be able to send press releases with interesting talking points and hold press conferences to extend their image and political campaign.
Why did the cannabis lobby accept to play along with this reform then? They probably feel desperate enough to accept anything which is thrown at them, but this is not the right way to do lobbying. A lobby would have never accepted a botched legal reform from the outset. I am sure they will learn from their experience and probably won’t be trusting politicians so easily next time round.
Why did the Attorney-General fail to warn the government of the consequences of what it was doing? Because the AG is morally corrupt. Victoria Buttigieg’s office doesn’t care about ensuring that legal drug reforms will reflect their original aim – this is not the AG’s priority. The AG’s main job is not to rock the boat when it comes to rule of law. Just like her political masters, Victoria Buttigieg is focused on keeping her job and not applying justice or the spirit of justice which is supposedly inscribed in policy and law by the executive. In order to keep her job, Victoria Buttigieg can’t afford to have the police crackdown on the Joseph Muscat cabal which includes her literal boss, the Justice Minister, Edward Zammit Lewis.
Our system is a shambolic rent-seeking paradise.
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