That didn’t last long. Myriam Spiteri Debono gave a generally well-received speech at her inauguration. Then, within days, she was slammed by the pro-life and pro-choice lobbies for saying that the abortion issue should be decided by referendum.

The lobbies are right, of course. We wouldn’t dream of putting the rights to life and privacy up for referendum.

But those are two key rights involved in abortion legislation. It’s for legislators (and judges) to protect fundamental rights against majorities and the tyranny of custom.

It’s a sign of wobbly judgement that Spiteri Debono claims a referendum would be the fairest way to decide the matter. But she did something worse. She spoke when she should be silent. The president has no business opining on how abortion should be decided.

She strayed from her duty. The decision on how to decide is a political matter likely to cause controversy. It might well end up characterised by partisan differences. It’s the kind of public debate a president should avoid leaping into.

Flawed judgement and an uncertain grasp of the confines of a president’s role were already on display in her inauguration speech. She strayed and wobbled there as well.

It’s one thing for a president to say that Malta has chosen to define itself by its protection of human rights, enshrining them as supreme and overriding any other provision in the constitution. Spiteri Debono did, more or less, say that. Had she gone on to call upon us to defend the dignity and rights of migrants out of loyalty to our republic, it would have been a deserved highlight.

Instead, she urged a policy of integration – mischaracterising the virtue of tolerance along the way. For all migrants fleeing “social/political cruelty in their native country”, she wants the help of Malta and the EU.

I happen to have considerable sympathy for that view. But it’s a strictly policy matter. One can be loyal to the constitution and object to it on civilised grounds. No rights need be violated. There’s room for legitimate difference. It’s completely inappropriate for the president to chip in with her two cents.

It got worse. She waded into the political mud bath and appealed to politicians not to cry, “U-turn!” when one side does just that. She wants them to encourage and congratulate changes of mind.

Once more, she’d have been praiseworthy had she restricted herself to reminding politicians to mind their tone because of its democratic repercussions. But, instead, she criticised accusations of U-turns when, recently, they’ve been associated principally with Robert Abela. She was either putting her thumb on the scale or showing poor judgement.

In our system, the president is not our moral compass... The compass of our public morality is the constitution- Ranier Fsadni

A lack of wisdom was certainly on display in her declaration, “Nobody, none, and nothing is greater than Malta, our mother country”.

Nothing? Not even human decency? Nobody? Not even a drowning child?

On its own, without context, that’s a declaration of far-right nationalism. For a religious believer, it’s idolatrous. For a believer in transcendent human rights, it’s alarming. For anyone with the slightest awareness of how Malta’s survival depends on international cooperation, it’s meaningless.

Of course, Spiteri Debono said it in context. In another passage, her speech paid tribute to human rights and solidarity. Her call to put Malta first came while urging political leaders to put country before party. She was really waving the flag for the common good.

But it still displays weak judgement to have chosen that form of words. They were obviously chosen to attract the media’s attention, which dutifully gave them prominence. Yet the formulation didn’t quite fit with the rest of what she said.

More importantly, we also know that formula has been used in the public arena, within the last few years, to justify a more sinister kind of Malta First rhetoric. It has been deployed against migrants and dissent.

Spiteri Debono made sure that other parts of her speech defended migrants and dissent. But that’s beside the point. In her position, she needs to be alive to how what she says can be misused by others.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that Spiteri Debono is a victim of public expectations. Before her inauguration, a lot was said about the need for a “president with a voice” and how the president is our moral compass.

So she came and delivered. She spoke like the First Nanna, dispensing homely wisdom about fairness, warnings about greed, advice about how far to go on a date (with the parliamentary adversary), reminders to close our eyes and think of Malta, and suggestions about how to raise children.

Except that, in our system, the president is not our moral compass (thankfully, given the difficulty we’d otherwise have filling that role). The compass of our public morality is the constitution.

Nor does the president get to have a personal voice. The constitution does – through the president, among other authorities.

It’s not a personality-centred presidency. It’s a constitution-centred one. We should aspire for the constitution, not the president, to be close to, and for, the people. And that won’t happen unless everything the president says is grounded in the constitution and appropriate for her role.

We don’t need a First Nanna. The president is not the head of society; the nation is not a family. We need a head of state whose manner and speech assure us the state is not a figment nor a distant memory. We need a president who can let the constitution’s trumpet sound.