Peter Omtzigt’s “two weights and two measures”

Once again Peter Omtzigt is in the news. This time we read in the press that he wishes to grill Rosianne Cutajar.

Peter Omtzjig demands this grilling because of a speech Rosianne Cutajar gave before the European Parliament. At this point, it may seem that here I am defending Rosianne Cutajar but this is not the purpose of this article. The scope here is that all facts must be laid down.

It is a known fact that this type of discourse is prepared by government experts who assist the deputies in drafting them. Therefore, when a deputy is giving this type of speech there is Government behind him or her. In truth when the speech was made, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was still at the helm. However, Government has not changed; we still have a Labour government. What is happening reflects badly on government because one of its deputies is being left to face the music when after all what she did – irrespective of whether one agrees or not with its content – was to speak on behalf of the government of the day. In fact, she spoke and defended the government’s agenda.  

What does all this mean? This goes to show that the government of the day is not assuming the responsibilities for its deeds and is abandoning one of its own deputies!

But there is more to this story. I can recall clearly one of the interesting discussions I had with Godfrey Grima. Grima strongly criticized Peter Omtzigt and he was absolutely right. Peter Omtzigt is not interested that justice is done in the Daphne Caruana Galizia case. Far from it. His thinking is based solely on an agenda to lash out against our country. The question here is on whose behalf is Omtzigt attacking mercilessly our country and for whose agenda is he sticking out his neck to such an extent?

Why was Godfrey Grima of this opinion? Basically, because Malta is not the only country where a journalist has been killed. In Omtzigt’s own country a journalist was killed. But in this case, he behaved differently. While in the case of Daphne he requested that a public inquiry be held, he did not make the same request in his own country where a journalist was assassinated! This clearly is a case of two weights and two measures. Where is the journalistic ethics in all this?