Bonum Certa Men Certa

A Day in the Life of... Battistelli's Banana Republic

Battistelli



Summary: This is part 5 of a fictional diary from the EPO

November 2016 was looking so good right up to the end. And then came those stupid, stupid judgments from the ILO.



A man of my greatness doesn’t deserve such humiliations. I’ve had a fabulous year. A few morons in the Administrative Council thought they would stand up to me. Well, they soon realised how hopeless their efforts were when all my friends stood shoulder to shoulder with me and pressed the right buttons when it came to the vote. When I say “friends”, I mean it in the political sense, of course. It’s not as though they had any choice. I made it quite clear to them what would happen to their “co-operation” money if they pressed the wrong button.

Once I’d taken care of those hopeless revolutionaries in the Council, I was free to get back to my favourite pastime – bullying staff reps. I’ve made it so easy for myself with all the changes I’ve introduced, almost too easy. It’s like a cat playing with a half-dead mouse. But hey, it’s still fun watching them suffer. I just loved signing that decision to fire Prunier. Not only did I feel a great surge of satisfaction at his pain, but I was also sticking up my middle finger to the clowns in the Council. It was wonderful.

Being unfair to others is part of my nature. It's a real pleasure to me. Of course, there is nothing like a bit of competition to add some spice and some extra motivation to my evilness. And that is why I like Frankie Boy in Geneva so much. We have a private bet on who can get away with the biggest and most obvious crimes and violations of the rights of others, without getting fired or ending up in jail.

It is not really the challenge, though, that I would like it to be. Firstly, because Frankie foolishly agreed that Lutz the Klutz could be the judge deciding who wins. Secondly, because I am well ahead in the race. Sure, I never ordered to take DNA samples to identify a wrongdoer, and I am a bit jealous that I didn’t think of it first. But, let’s face it, I don’t need scientific gimmicks to catch the scum I want to get rid of. I know myself who’s guilty: the people I dislike. I simply give Elodie their names, she tells the Investigation Unit what they have to do, and they do it. Any kind of garbage is enough, since I am the judge anyway. And - thanks to my immunity - I am clearly a truly independent judge. That gives me the moral authority to explain to the public why the accused is guilty as sin. The public then sees me as a benevolent, loving leader, and admires my leniency in the softness of the punishment I impose.

If it weren’t for Frankie Boy, I’d like to call my system the EPO Kangaroo Court but that would almost sound like I was honouring him and his silly upside-down nationality. Anyhow, whatever you call my clever legal system, thanks to the fact that I can determine myself whether and how to apply the ECHR, all legal requirements are met. That's at least what I tell my buddy Joff and the Council. They believe everything.

It sometimes happens that Elodie adds a few more names to the list. As in the case of Weaver and Brumme. And that's good since it leads to persecutions where nobody can understand how I pick my victims. That intensifies the climate of fear in the Office. The higher the level of fear, the higher the production - that's the secret of my success. The delegations love increasing production numbers since they are addicted to the cash.

Ah, I was having so much fun all month, right up to the end. And then, on the very last day came that idiotic judgment. I must get Klutzy to make an appointment for me with those idiotic judges in Geneva. I bet Frankie Boy has been bribing them to be mean to me. I need to get over there and offer them more than he is paying. Or maybe I’ll take my hunky body guards with me and explain what they can do if they get upset by people being mean to me. I could send them round to Frankie while we’re there. Oh, revenge will be sweet.

So, they think, those scumbag judges, that they have just rendered our Internal Appeal Committee retroactively null and void from the beginning of 2015. Hahahaha. Haven’t they heard of immunity, those fools? What are they going to do if I just ignore them, eh? Oh, this is going to be such fun. I can exploit the situation to my own advantage. After all, they’ve just dramatically increased our appeals backlog, haven’t they? So, I shall just have to be the decisive leader again and put measures in place to reduce the backlog. I shall call it “Early Certainty from Internal Appeals”. The only certainty will be that I refuse ALL of them. HAHAHA – je m’en fous – this is going to be so much fun. I shall prepare a Council document tomorrow, explaining how all internal appeals will be deemed refused. In fact, I shall make them retroactively refused so that the deadline has already expired for taking them to Geneva. I am such a genius. And all the staff can go on suffering.

Being president is so much fun. Je m’en fous.

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