Malta’s constitution is like a badly-written essay that needed to be completely reworked, Democratic Party leader Godfrey Farrugia has said. 

Addressing a press conference on Monday, Dr Farrugia said he was personally in favour of a constitutional re-write, rather than the current one being amended.

He warned about the risks of the constitutional reform process being hijacked by the two main parties.

Dr Farrugia said that last Wednesday a brainstorming session about constitutional reform had taken place between the two parties.

He said PD had the political will to be part of this process and not allow it to be hijacked by the Nationalist Party and Labour Party.

He said such a process had to be driven from the bottom up.

Read: How would experts rewrite the constitution?

Dr Farrugia said the process should be open to all spheres of society, including political parties not represented in parliament, academia as well as independent bodies such as the Ombudsman.

He said the constitutional convention should last for at least two years with broad participation from the people.

PD leader Godfrey Farrugia is concerned the two major parties will try and hijack the constitutional reform process.

Once a draft constitution had been agreed on, he said this draft should be tabled in Parliament and ultimately put to a referendum.

He said the constitutional convention should remain active for a number of years after this process had been undertaken in order to monitor its workings.

Dr Farrugia said the PD had set up a working group about constitutional change and would be consulting with the public on the matter as well as publishing a position paper.

He said PD would be entering into a dialogue with citizens through its social media channels.

The PD leader said Malta’s rule of law did not have sufficient inbuilt controls.