When former Members of Parliament are no longer bound by any constrictive party rules, they can express any personal views and opinions they might have about how Parliament ought to be, in a much more constructive way and based on their extensive experience. Experience – time and past hard knocks – also gives a veteran a clearer vision of what parliamentarians’ conditions should be like.
Partisan criticism about when reforms should or could have been implemented, along with disputes about who should have implemented them, does not help even slightly in the aim of moving forward.
As time goes by, and as the public acquires more insight into how Parliament works, it will become all the more apparent that certain reforms are needed for us to have professional, full-time parliamentarians.
By taking these important steps in this direction, we would ameliorate the work of our Parliament considerably. If we wish for better representation in our national Parliament, several reforms will have to be made.
Firstly, political parties should not make the mistake they have often made in the past of going after candidates whose selection is solely based on their popularity and not their political ambitions or beliefs.
Such candidates have never had even the slightest ambition of being in Parliament but, since their priority has always been their professional work, they are chosen solely to gather votes.
Secondly, when seeking prospective candidates, political parties ought to issue calls for young people interested in politics years before elections take place, and provide them with constitutional instruction, public speaking skills and knowledge of parliamentary proceedings and regulations. In other words, they should be instructed early on about what is required from a parliamentarian.
Indeed, this issue is already being put into practice as we can see from the recent group of young candidatures put forward by political parties during and prior to the last European and local council elections. This has clearly borne some fruit as many young candidates were elected.
Thirdly, every prospective candidate’s personal record must be clean of any criminal offences and should be checked before their candidacies are submitted.
Till now, none of these points have been properly considered or implemented.
Personal assets
The former parliamentarians’ association feels it is humiliating for parliamentarians to have their personal financial assets published or submitted to Parliament. In my view, this is solely intended for gossip among the general public in bars and coffee shops. Not to mention that these submissions of assets are never really verified or accounted for.
What we could suggest instead is that these financial submissions be sent to the Auditor General for verification, unlike the procedure to date where there have been no verifications of any sort.
Only after this, and if the Auditor General finds discrepancies, would a report be submitted to the Speaker, who would then table the report(s) in Parliament.
Even Members of Parliament should be entitled to their own and their family’s privacy, as is anyone else.
Full-time parliamentarians
The association has been stating and insisting for many years that our Parliament should be made up of full-time parliamentarians.
Their pay has to be adequate for their position and also cater for their own and their family’s needs. David Stellini’s case, if studied, properly indicates why.
As secretary of our association, I have participated in many discussions held on this issue in our committee meetings. Hereunder, I will list some points that our country should consider if we want to have a better and more serious group of parliamentarians in our Parliament.
First, it should be noted that a parliamentarian, earning €20,000 per year (like a government clerk), having to feed a family from only this income, and probably being invited to numerous engagements every month, would not have much money left, if at all, from such miserable wages.
This reality does not even enter the minds of the general public who believe that all parliamentarians are rich and can easily afford access to the finer financial spheres of life.
Part-time MPs who are lawyers, architects, accountants, doctors/specialists, et cetera, earn more in a month than what parliamentarians without a degree earn in a year.
We consider it simply ridiculous to have a Member of Parliament or a civil servant earning more than the Prime Minister
We also suggest that MPs’ private lives should also be monitored by the Speaker’s Office.
Specifically regarding female MPs, we suggest that adequate childcare facilities be provided in Parliament should theirs become full-time positions. Parliamentary sessions should also consider the needs of female parliamentarians when their scheduling is being done.
While on this topic, we do not believe that female parliamentarians should be inducted into Parliament without being elected through proper democratic processes as are all other MPs. If the government keeps on insisting on quotas, then we recommend that this system is undertaken on a trail basis for no longer than two terms. That being said, we believe in equality, not positive discrimination.
Our association also insists that any elected parliamentarian should be entitled to a full pension after one legislature at retirement age.
Furthermore, we believe that no MP should have or hold shares in any company or otherwise since their dedication must extend solely to the remit of Parliament. We believe this should be the case for parliamentarians for a period of five years.
Our association also insists that all meetings held between ministers and any companies, financial institutions or investment firms should be registered and recorded.
We also hold that Parliament should be obliged to give more attention to citizens’ objections.
No minister should be able to employ members of their family to work in any capacity in the ministry they serve.
We also insist that no parliamentarian, whether an MP or MEP, should speak indiscriminately against our islands. MPs should also have an official place in setting up the country’s protocol.
Lastly, we consider it simply ridiculous to have an MP or a civil servant earning more than the Prime Minister, and this should be duly noted as a further reason for establishing full-time positions for MPs.
This is the most important change we need to implement so that we may have a better system of Parliament, where candidates have to decide beforehand if they want to dedicate their efforts to the demands of a parliamentary position.
Standards report
We find the report of George Hyzler, the Standards Commissioner appointed by this administration, to have made very valid observations of our past and present system of government. We believe that certain recommendations that were submitted require serious consideration and debate.
It is useless to have critics of this report asking why this was not done before under previous administrations. The answer to this is simply that it was the present administration that created this Office with the sole aim of delivering impartial and effective judgement. Indeed, we believe that the present administration should be commended for creating this position.
We should note that our association has submitted itself for discussions of both the GRECO and Vienna Reports, but, so far, no such discussions have been held.
Lino DeBono is secretary of the Association of Former Members of Parliament.