Parliament now has two disabled MPs who have never hidden this attribute from public view.

They were both socially active before entering the political foray, especially in the disability sector. Incidentally, they both earned their seat through a co-option, though one stood for election while the other did not.

Yet, their co-option was not without controversy. In both cases, they entered parliament after much political manoeuvring.

This tale of two co-options has it all: a real risk of not having enough Gozitans in parliament versus a debt of gratitude, internal strife, retribution, explicit overtones aimed at switching allegiances, probable loss of a parliamentary seat, devout obedience and the renewing of a parliamentary group.

All sides involved accused each other of undemocratic demeanour. I will not delve into the moral implications of the mechanics of the co-options.

Many a legal eagle have flown where I dare not. However, I was deeply disturbed by the oft-prostituted term “undemocratic”. What does it mean to be undemocratic?

The two parties in parliament tend to agree on what constitutes undemocratic behaviour in a symbiotic yet alternate way. Labour is undemocratic when the Nationalists say so and vice versa. According to this narrative, both parties are never undemocratic at the same time.

Yet, there are those who beg to differ. People who are denied the right to vote in secret, for example. Malta is the only EU country that denies a sector of the electorate the right to cast a secret ballot. It prohibits people who cannot vote due to a number of reasons, such as illiteracy, inability to use one’s hands, blindness or intellectual disability, from being accompanied by a trusted friend who would fill in the voting ballot for them.

These children of a lesser god are at par with North Korean voters

Our constitution still requires these fellow citizens to submit their political choices to strangers (if they are lucky) who will then fill in their ballot. Even though these strangers are assistant electoral commissioners sworn to secrecy, they are agents of the state, parties or candidates. None of them is an agent of the voter!

This means that our constitution effectively disenfranchises a section of the electorate from its right to a free and secret vote. These children of a lesser god are at par with North Korean voters. Yet, none of the two parties bats an eyelid.

Malta is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, which it has also ratified.

However, it has always maintained a reservation on the introduction of the concept of trusted friend.

A friend of mine who cannot possibly function without round-the-clock live-in care complains that, while she trusts her carer with her PIN code, the state would not let her trust the carer with her vote. Which, by the way, means much less to her than her life savings.

In the current state of affairs, ‘the state’ spells euphemistic for ‘the two political parties in parliament’. A government  led by the Nationalist Party introduced the reservation but,  in almost seven years, the Labour government did nothing to remove it.

This is a clear sign of democratic deficit, which is nowhere close to being removed. Yet, the parties keep on haranguing on whose co-option is the more undemocratic. How’s that for missing woods for trees!

The Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability organises parliamentary sessions for the disabled. When parliament was still located within the Palace, the sessions never took place in the chamber proper. It was not accessible.

However, it was rendered so in time for Malta’s stint as President of the Council of the EU in 2017. One of the prime reasons for this transformation was the fact that the German finance minister at the time happened to be a wheelchair user.

If only he had paid us a visit earlier!

On the year marking our parliament’s first centenary, we have two disabled MPs, both on the backbench of the political divide. It is up to them to change the system from within.

It has taken some odd twists of fate to have them there. They must grab the opportunity because the two parties will never find the right time to carry out the necessary reforms.

They owe it to their older peers who have dreamt of having a fellow disabled MP.

Mostly, they owe it to those who will be inspired by their actions.

Bernard Busuttil, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability