Letters from the Algarve

Letter from the Algarve: June 09

I was looking at properties in Brasil. I am considering buying in the North-East. As those of you who follow my updates will know, I favour Brasil as one of the few countries that will be prospering not only this year, but for some considerable time to come. The currency will be strengthening, and land prices will be rising. I am investing.

As part of my due diligence I was searching out cultural matters last week. I even studied a bit about what the locals find funny, and how their jokes work. It seems that in Eastern Brasil they regard the Portuguese as dummies, and have a whole slew of what we Brits would call Irish jokes, only the butt of these jokes is always the Portuguese.

Of course, folks from Lisbon and Northern Portugal regard the mob from down in the Algarve as country bumpkins and ignorant yokels who cant even speak the language properly. So I was feeling distinctly at the bottom of the pile as a new week dawned.

However, on monday afternoon I turned back the pool cover and walked down the steps into a gloriously warm, sparkling pool, and spent the best part of an hour splashing around. That raised my spirits no end.

On the other hand, things are generally not good in this country. The government spokesman on the economy said we would be out of recession by the autumn. I suppose he has to talk the country up, but did he have to be so obviously idiotic? One would have to be completely ga-ga to believe things are about to improve.

However, much worse is the news about various problems in the police force. We have just had a very messy case where police beat up a woman accused of killing her child. The woman is obviously a blatant liar, and kept changing her story, but it was obvious to anyone that she had been beaten up as her face was in a shocking state.

The case has finally been determined. It was agreed that the police had beaten her up and falsified evidence. All the accused were given suspended prison sentences. That's the equivalent of being told 'go away and dont do it again'.

My problem is that it seems to be one rule for government agents and another for the rest of us. Let me go back a bit.

Last month I wrote about the water situation. The government has decreed that if I dont fill in a form and tell them what I have already told them on 11 other forms I will be fined €25,000.

Put that against the fact that several senior police officers deliberately falsify evidence and they are let off.

Isn't there something smelly about this? One is supposed to view the police as upholding the law, not deliberately breaking it, and then having the law support them. How can one live in a country where the rule of law is so bastardized? As I have so many times said, this country is run like some African autocracy.

We were supposed to celebrate just over three decades of liberation from a dictatorship only a few weeks back. As a friend of mine said to me as he was packing up his market stall, "We got rid of one dictator, but we've now got thousands of dictators in government buildings all over the country".

We also have the curious case of the Madeline McCann disappearance. Apparently some employees at the complex where the event took place have been given the sack due to a drop in bookings. They have decided to sue the McCanns for "the lies they told".

The officer in charge of the case until he was booted out was a hick called Amaral, who has written a book saying that Madeline died in the apartment. This same hick was one of the crooks who was accused and found guilty of falsifying evidence in the case mentioned above.

This is how I approached the matter in a letter to the local newspaper.

"Might I suggest that any people seeking to sue the McCanns for the loss of their jobs should have a look at the law books. In the first place they would have to prove some relationship between a malicious act of the McCanns and themselves. In order for them to prove that they would first have to prove that Madeleine was not abducted. If the police cant prove it, with access supposedly to all the evidence, how the heck does anybody else propose to do so? Or do they have a file of evidence not available to the cops?

Secondly, they would have to prove that they lost their jobs as a direct result of whatever fabrication they claim has taken place. Since we are entering the worst depression for 70 years, and there has been a massive drop in the exchange rate between the UK and Portugal, and the UK is the biggest tourist market for the area, they are on a hiding to nothing on that one.

It is no good suing someone for "the lies they told". You cant sue someone for lying. In the first place you have to prove the lies. Secondly you have to prove they were malicious. Thirdly you have to prove a connection between them and the event complained of. Put it this way: How about suing that jerk, Amaral? He, and other police officers have been convicted of faking evidence. They appear to have bungled the Madeline case. Who wants to come with their kids to a country where the police cant protect them, and invent evidence, and ignore evidence? Is it Amaral who has lost these guys their jobs? Who knows?"

With the crook Amaral in mind I am wondering about the law in this strange land. I can be fined €25,000 euros for failing to fill in a form, but a policeman who falsifies evidence, striking at the crux of the legal system, is found guilty and let off with a warning. That situation should rock all good citizens to the core.

Letters from the Algarve

Letter from the Algarve: June 09

Back to the Top