While a few weeks ago nobody would have thought that the prime minister would be forced to announce his resignation, matters have changed drastically since then and have diluted the PM’s command of the reins of his own party. Fissures in the Labour government and in the Labour Party became publicly evident.
We witnessed one senior government minister (Evarist Bartolo) criticising the PM’s behaviour and asserting that those who hijacked the country will not stop after a new labour leader is elected. A former minister and now European Commissioner (Helena Dalli) admitted she would have done things differently than the current prime minister.
The former chief of staff (Keith Schembri) at the Office of the Prime Minister (for whose actions and omissions the prime minister is politically and constitutionally responsible to the House) has been arrested on several occasions and is currently being investigated by the police for the perpetration of the grave crime of wilful homicide and other criminal offences.
Further, PL chief executive Randolph Debattista correctly declared there is no place for criminals in the party, a frame-up was conspired against a government minister (Chris Cardona), a government minister resigned (Konrad Mizzi), another minister (Cardona) self-suspended himself, to be reinstated within less than a week, and two Labour contestants (Chris Fearne and Robert Abela) publicly declared they would remove the commissioner of police (much defended by Muscat) from office.
Fissures in the Labour government and in the Labour Party became publicly evident
Recent events have also seen a former Labour president and minister (Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca) calling for the PM to resign, a former Labour MEP (Marlene Mizzi) calling for the PM to vacate office, a vast majority of MEPs, including those from the European Socialist family, calling for the PM’s immediate resignation, the continuous protests by civil society requesting the PM to move on in life, serious allegations of involvement in grave crime by persons employed on a basis of trust at the PM’s office, and the President’s pronouncements on the volatile political situation, with his reference to gangs of criminals who shamed Malta’s reputation.
Other recent news are the worrying revelations emanating from the Egrant Inc inquiry which have not yet been acted upon by the police, the heated discussions allegedly reported to have taken place in Cabinet when deciding to refuse Yorgen Fenech’s request for a presidential pardon and on the political situation in Malta on that day, adverse publicity in the international press on Malta, the Opposition’s boycott of the PM and its endless calls for his immediate resignation, calls in the media by the Daphne Caruana Galizia family for the investigation of the PM by the police for unlawful conduct, serious allegations made against the PM for allegedly accepting bribes from Yorgen Fenech, the slowing down of business, abuse in public sector employment through engaging a person of trust who is paid for four months while never reporting for work, the subjugation of government and the public sector to bad governance measures all dished out from Castille, etc.
All these and other factors that emerged in such a short period made it imperative that the President ascertain that the PM, as at that day, not prior to the date when he announced his future resignation, still enjoyed majority support in his parliamentary group. As the saying goes, a week is a long time in politics. All of a sudden the country is in tatters and the harm occasioned will take long to be remedied.
On the one hand, had the Labour parliamentary group reconfirmed its support for the PM, the matter would have ended there in so far as the president’s constitutional function in terms of article 80 of the Constitution is concerned. He would have complied with his constitutional duty in terms of his oath of office to ‘preserve, protect and defend the Constitution’ (a duty which was forgotten to be mentioned in the Office of the President’s press release), article 80 requiring the PM to enjoy a continuous majority in the House throughout the entire legislature, and the proviso to article 85(1)(b) which empowers the President – on his own motion and unadvised – to remove a PM from office irrespective of any vote of no confidence or dissolution of the House.
Had the Labour parliamentary group, on the other hand, informed the president that there was another MP who commanded majority support, the president would have been constitutionally obliged in terms of articles 80 and 85(1)(b) to substitute the current PM with that MP.
The concluding part of this article will appear tomorrow.
Professor Kevin Aquilina is Head of Department of Media, Communications and Technology Law, Faculty of Laws, University of Malta.