The President of the Republic recently opened a public consultation on constitutional reform. I have very little faith in the whole process. I believe that these supposed constitutional reforms are just a sham.
Why do I think so? For the simple reason that these reforms are not the result of a bottom-up approach whereby experts, academics, civil society, NGOs and the different political parties come up with their proposals and then, in a convention especially convened for the purpose, get together to hammer out a sensible compromise that suits all inhabitants of our country.
What we have instead is a stage-managed exercise tailormade to satisfy, and even strengthen, the hold that the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party have on all our institutions.
They are only interested in perpetuating the two-party system that, for 30 years, has riddled this country with corruption, ranging from the PN’s oil scandal to the PL’s Panama one, with the environmental degradation we live day by day, the social injustices and the continuous erosion of our quality of life.
They are so barefaced that they have not even made an effort to pretend that all would be involved. Instead, the PL appointed three of its tribe: Owen Bonnici, Julia Farrugia Portelli and Louis Grech, and the PN appointed three from its own tribe: Chris Said, Tonio Borg and Amy Camilleri Zahra.
The six, originally under the chairmanship of Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, have been meeting for the past nine months, setting terms of reference, deciding the agenda, bringing up different topics.
Once they had set the ball rolling and organised things the way that suited the two parties they represented, they started having one-off meetings with the minor political parties and other organisations.
If we want to be credible with regard to constitutional reform, everything has to start from scratch
And now we have a three-month vox pop, which is supposed to legitimise all that the two parties will be concocting together.
I have no doubt about President George Vella’s good intentions. I am convinced that he would really like to ensure we have a functioning constitution that focuses on checks and balances, social and environmental justice and proportional representation.
Unfortunately, however, I believe the ‘persona’ of the President is just being used by Joseph Muscat and Adrian Delia to give credibility to their bi-partisan game.
His presence on the PNPL-appointed committee casts doubts on the actual legality of the talks. The Constitution precludes the President from taking part in controversial political topics or even expressing his opinion on matters of a political nature.
Limited as he is by these constitutional constraints, how can the President ever express himself in the committee on, say, the question of Malta’s neutrality? How can he give his opinion on what the powers of the Prime Minister should be and whether Parliament should be given much more power?
How can he pronounce himself on whether the present Presidential prerogatives should be widened or maintained as they are?
If, on the other hand, the President were not to stick to the limitations imposed upon him by the Constitution and spoke his mind about the political reforms he deemed necessary for the country, it would vitiate the whole talks and render null and void any conclusions reached.
The reality is that the President has his hands tied, but the PN and PL show no shame in using his independent status as first citizen of the country to legitimise their duopoly.
They are so disrespectful of the President’s office that the government has already decided on the supposed reform of the Attorney General and Public Prosecutor posts.
So arrogant are the PNPL that they have already decided that not only should they be the political parties that can have proportional representation in Parliament but it is only their women candidates who can be co-opted into Parliament for the extra seats. Any non-PL or non-PN woman candidate would be excluded. Shameful.
Is the President going to speak his mind and state clearly that all Maltese women candidates should be treated equally? Is he going to tell Muscat and Delia that having proportional representation only for their two parties is unacceptable? Is he going to scold Muscat and his government for implementing piecemeal reforms while the supposed Constitutional Convention is still on?
Unfortunately, the President can do nothing of the sort, because if he were to speak on these topics he could easily be impeached.
So, basically, if we want to be credible with regard to constitutional reform, everything has to start from scratch, with civil society, NGOs and experts at the forefront, together with representatives of all democratic political parties.
Until this happens, we are just being presented with a sham.
Arnold Cassola, academic and politician, is former secretary general of the European Green Party and former member of the Italian Parliament.