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There is only one way to describe our reaction to the tragic death of the two construction workers this week: crocodile tears.
No matter how many of us die on places of work, and especially on construction sites, we do not seem to make any progress and rules and regulations continue to be broken.
Deterrence is not the order of the day. Let’s face it, what is there to deter anyone from defying the rules and regulations regarding health and safety at work? Nothing in particular. We have witnessed many accidents leaving people dead or wheelchair-bound for the rest of their lives and yet, it is only the victims who pay the price and those responsible manage to get away with murder. I for one do not agree that all accidents are accidents and should be treated by our criminal law as involuntary.
In my student days at the law course we were taught that there are degrees of negligence and it is wrong for the law to and consider all accidents as involuntary, as the perpetrator would be able to easily get away with a trivial sum of money for either killing or incapacitating somebody. For instance: if you drive at an excessive speed, you will not be able to avoid hitting a pedestrian if he/she suddenly crosses the street in front of you.
It is the same with construction sites, where the presence of as architect has become a rarity these days. Either that, or everybody is an architect, and is allowed to do it all on his own… except for the final certificate, which is often conveniently signed by a real architect.
Consider the excavations that take place next to your house: they crack your walls, your tiles, render your house hell, and they are allowed to get away it because there is nobody to stop them. MEPA is on their side, because it considers the law regarding the distance of two and a half feet from your party wall to be a civil matter and not a planning issue. And suddenly, you are faced not only with a damaged house, but also with the hustle and bustle of dealing with insurance coimpanies and court.
The abusers continue to abuse, because the law is on their side and not on the side of the victim.
And despite all these deaths we have still failed to send a strong message out there that abuses will no longer be tolerated. We preach against abortion, and at the same time we allow human beings to die like dogs. We harangue that poor young helpless mother for abandoning her baby, and then we treat with kid gloves those whose rampant negligence have killed people and destroyed whole families. Meanwhile, our heart aches at cases of cruelty to animals (and rightly so), and at bird trapping and hunting; so much so that Brussels seems to have nothing better to do than to spy on our trappers and hunters.
And yet, our heart is insensitive to the deaths and injuries caused by accidents, which many times are not accidents at all, but tragedies caused by the gross negligence of irresponsible people. There is something wrong with us somewhere.
Some time ago we were told that each construction site is to provide a board with the name of the owner, of the contractor, of the architect and the PA permit. For a while the government took the initiative and installed them on the roads financed by the Italian Protocol. But since then we seem to have buried the idea once and for all. While local newspapers point out that the site of this week’s tragedy was a project by GAP Holdings, no information was given about the architect, the contractor, and the PA permit.
In Malta we have the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, which, by the way, I am told caters only for health and safety at the place of work, so that places of entertainment and other public places are immune to health and safety laws. Yes: believe it or not, neither MEPA, nor the police, nor the Trading Licences require the applicant to present a certificate that the premises have adequate health and safety measures. It seems that the system is free for all, in that you only have to comply with hygiene rules and with MEPA regulations, but are free to ignore any safety regulations covering fire exits, etc.
We are waiting for a tragedy in one of these commercial establishments in order for the authority to move and ensure that rules and regulations are introduced in this sector. But more than that, it is the responsibility of MEPA to ensure that the application is endorsed by an adequate safety certificate before issuing the PA permit. I am told that MEPA itself failed to submit an application to the Occupational Health and Safety Authority for their comments in cases regarding workplaces.
The Occupational Health and Safety Authority said that it is holding an internal inquiry. But we do not want inquiries. We want the authority to act as a catalyst and make public its recommendations on what needs to be done, including how penalties should be revised in order to serve as the deterrent that they are meant to be.
The BICC (Building Industry Consultative Council) also publishes rules and guidelines for all those involved in the construction industry, but there seems to be something wrong somewhere because the system is not working.
It is not working because the law considers all accidents with the same degree of involuntariness. Imprisonment is hardly ever imposed on those responsible. Sometimes the punishment is a slap in the face for the victims and their families. Civil cases for damages, when decided, are decided on a formula which does not take into consideration moral damages. If they kill your son, you get less compensation than if they kill your husband. There is no specific formula for damages, and that is why many cases take so long: because one judge uses one formula, another uses a different formula, and we all find solace n the Court of Appeal, which has adopted a very conservative way of calculating damages. If a specific formula were introduced in our Civil Code, much of the workload at court would be reduced, as would the time-span for these cases.
I am sure you have read that in the case of the victims at Cathedral Street, Sliema, the architect, pending criminal charges, was awarded a promotion as chairman of one of the DCC boards at MEPA.
So when you read about cases like this, where the government did not even have the decency to wait until his charges are concluded, can we be blamed for calling the tears of the administration “crocodile tears”? Surely not.
How many more people have to die or be confined to a bed or a wheelchair before we take this issue seriously?
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