In his final column on the long-running McGrail saga – and with publication of the report delayed until December 15 – former Gibraltar Chronicle news editor Francisco Oliva ponders on partisan politics – and do we care about the party loyalty of the medic performing life-saving surgery on us?
WHEN someone is lying on a medical operating theatre awaiting an emergency intervention, neither the hospital manager, the patient or anyone with a modicum of common sense will be querying whether the surgeon votes Republican or Democrat, Tory or Labour, PP or PSOE, GSLP or GSD.
No one in their right mind will be bothered what the surgeon’s alma mater is, whether they eat their meat rare or well done, what their first language is, whether they adhere to one religious faith or another or none whatsoever.
The only relevant concern is whether the person is a competent professional who can do a good job and save the patient. At that point everything else is frankly, utterly irrelevant.
Once the procedure is done opinions can be opened to all and sundry and interested parties proceed to a hearty exchange of views.
The allegorical example serves to illustrate storm in a teacup that was stirred up last summer in response to the appointment of lawyer Peter Montegriffo as chairman of the Gibraltar Police Authority.
Montegriffo, a senior partner at Hassans, is another of those elite members of the progressive establishment and objectively speaking, probably better suited than most to urgently correct a defective institution that is a key part of the constitutional checks and balances of the Rock’s administrative system.
PRIORITISE THE IMPORTANT
That the GSD and various others should object on the grounds of his professional links to the said firm is hardly a debate for today.
Once the new GPA is up and running as it should be, and it can be factually verified that the authority will be able to properly discharge its supervisory functions efficiently, with complete independence as befits a mature democracy such as ours, other secondary aspects of the selection method can be looked at in greater detail.
But let us prioritise the important first, and saving the patient, in this case having a properly functioning police authority to get us through the current open crisis overrides other considerations.
Those of a certain generation and with sufficient memory will recall that Montegriffo is also a former politician who was groomed in his day to become Chief Minister and would have been one of a select few Gibraltarians with the capacity to reach the highest political office in the land.
His professional expertise and knowledge of democratic governance is beyond any shadow of doubt, and he should be given the necessary breathing space to complete the task of restoring the authority’s credibility in the public interest of Gibraltar, without the narrow political sniping from erstwhile colleagues in the party he founded over thirty years ago.
Coming from the place we were in – which was not a particularly good one – getting bogged down in a quarrel about the choice of ‘doctor’ seems illogical.
Under the circumstances, that he should have been called upon to lead the reform process of a vital structure that was not fit for purpose is the correct decision.
An experienced lawyer with a political edge seems well suited for the immediate job in hand.
Other than the aforementioned ripples of discontent, his nomination and willingness to take on the challenge has been largely uncontroversial.
SERIOUS DEFICIENCIES
The McGrail inquiry revealed serious deficiencies in the GPA and the need to ensure there should be a person in charge with the right temperament to deal with powerful community actors, and naturally well versed in key constitutional doctrine including rule of law and separation of powers.
In due course, once he hopefully succeeds in hammering a new, workable structure into shape to guarantee robust oversight of police independence from unwanted political, commercial or other pressures, other debates can be had.
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
It would perhaps be an appropriate time to discuss whether it is necessary to have legislative mechanisms in place to curb excessive influence by any individual lobby, legal firm or interest group in the corridors of power, and also to examine the evident imbalance where the bias in favour of progressive elements in important political and constitutional positions appears to be taken for granted as a dogmatic, unchallengeable norm.
However the latter is an anomaly that transcends this, having broader significance and repercussions across the political system.
The inquiry also shone light on a less than satisfactory appointment system for sensitive posts, whether it be the Specified Appointments Commission or the Public Services Commission.
READ MORE: The McGrail Report – Gibraltar’s path to reconciliation after five years of fracture, by F Oliva
Maybe it is time for a review of these arrangements both to enhance transparency, balance and independence – for positions where such a quality is deemed essential – and ensure that the best person is always selected for critical posts on strict grounds of merit rather than for reasons of ideological or personal alignment.
A formula has to be found, ideally by parliamentary consensus for the recruitment of suitable, adequately qualified individuals for such sensitive positions.
While it is true that it is preferable to avoid that any single entity be institutionally overrepresented across public life and thus amass disproportionate sway in determining a direction of travel, in a place like Gibraltar with a small pool of potential candidates of a high calibre for such specialised occupations, it is hardly unimaginable that they will all fluctuate toward a handful of powerful, totemic corporate organisations.
It would also be illogical to have black lists or automatic exclusions by virtue of overrepresentation or perception of overrepresentation in the past. It would be foolish to deprive ourselves of the best people.
READ MORE: The McGrail report – Making sense of what we saw in ‘Gibraltar confidential’, writes F Oliva
The fact is that Gibraltar cannot run away from itself, from long standing conditioning factors that define what we are at the core, by reasons of political & historical evolution, geographic position and physical limitations.
Divisive party politics is one such factor which often militates against the broader public interest, an invidious measure that will stand in the way of pragmatic initiatives and the creation of non-party political spaces for the professional management of critical administrative institutions.
No doubt there will be time at a later stage to debate such matters, including what is the best guarantor of policing independence in Gibraltar.
NOT SO UNTHINKABLE
The opening gambit of this article posed what would have been an unthinkable scenario.
In fact it is far from being so. In the northern region of Spain – the Basque Country – the nationalist government has a system in place which primes fluent command of the Basque language above medical qualifications.
It is something that seems taken from an absurdist script.
If you are an eminent surgeon without knowledge of the regional language, your chances of employment by the health service would be vastly inferior to those with a less formidable academic CV albeit fluent in Basque.
It is not the type of mindset where extraneous factors are allowed to thwart reasonable choices that we should be heeding or much less imitating.
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