In my first three months as an MP I learnt several things, one of which is the intense scrutiny MPs (especially on the government benches) are under, which makes sure that we are on our very best behaviour.
I was not totally uninitiated to this, as my seven-year stint as disability commissioner had its fair share of answering PQs, writing annual reports, being confronted by journalists, submitting to audits by the NAO and, sometimes, being criticised directly by the public, especially through social media.
In these months, I have also noticed the zeal with which former ministers denounce alleged current laxities in the way some members of government operate while merrily ignoring the wicked ways in which they had occupied those very same benches.
This Damascene conversion stinks of hypocrisy. But it would be utterly short-sighted of us to simply go on the media and complain about ‘their’ past ways in order to excuse ‘our’ current ways.
In fact, I refuse to launch in such fruitless tu quoque debates.
It is true that, historically, what’s sauce for the Nationalists is never sauce for the Labourites. But we have to move on.
It is simply a matter of upping our game as a direct consequence of the bar being raised. No more, no less. The only problem is that, as per usual, in Malta we go from one extreme to another. The first gentleman to have had a Damascene conversion experienced this on his own skin, after the Maltese went from believing him to be a murderer to a god, in the bat of an eyelid.
In the span of a few years, our society has turned from a very loose level of tolerance to a level of puritanism that would make Oliver Cromwell blush. As with all sudden changes, some are more adapt at keeping up with change than others.
But change we must. We owe it to our electorate, we owe it to the country and we owe it to ourselves. But while to some it may seem as this is a quantum shift, I don’t think it takes much to adapt.
Some might think themselves as having discovered the Americas when waving about terms such as ‘due process’, ‘accountability’, ‘checks and balances’ and, the mother of them all, ‘the rule of law’.
The problem is that they are only discovering hot water.
These have been there all along, it was the spotlight that was lighting another part of the stage. This has been further fuelled by the worrying trend that the public tends to take us politicians too seriously and repeat the very same words they listen us utter.
As a commissioner, I got used to ‘the rule of law’ being shoved down my throat by the more articulate part of our clientele. Such people amused me how quickly they went back to their MP once I had clearly shown them that what they actually wanted was for me to bend the rules for their sake, thus trumping on ‘the rule of law’ they held to so dearly.
We would usually reach this stage in our conversation once I explained that I was looking forward to give my version of events to the Ombudsman’s Office, which never found me in breach of any regulations.
I believe that it is not only the political class that has to up its game in this regard.
The public, professionals and the business community have some soul-searching to do as well.
If people are too dependent on their MPs’ intercession, by raising the bar we would have only created a new vicious circle.
Oliver Scicluna, Labour MP