For consultation to serve its true purpose it has to be effective in drawing adequate feedback that would, in turn, lead to informed decision-making.
Effective consultation does not simply entail the government knowing what somebody thinks or what was once stated about a given topic. It must involve citizens and stakeholders in a meaningful process of taking their views into account and a willingness to be influenced by them.
What effective consultation is not is a mere symbolic gesture to be seen to be lending an ear to the public.
Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis appears to be unable to comprehend what real consultation is all about.
First, he had the arrogance to demand within seven days an opinion from the Venice Commission on 10 draft laws that involved constitutional changes. Then, when it publicly commented that, since what was being proposed would “have a profound and long-term impact”, there should be “wide consultations within Maltese society”, the minister, a lawyer to boot, had the gall to tell the Council of Europe’s constitutional experts that the government was well aware of the relevant stakeholders’ opinions because it had followed online media and read personal blogs.
Zammit Lewis has pioneered virtual public consultation and expects all, including international institutions, to endorse his modus operandi.
The Venice Commission urged the government to conduct “wide consultations and a structured dialogue with civil society, parliamentary parties, academia, the media and other institutions, in order to open a free and unhampered debate of the current and future reforms, including for constitutional revision, to make them holistic”.
Much as Zammit Lewis might argue that this is what happened, it did not. By the minister’s argument, President George Vella is wasting his time and that of many others in his determination to broaden public consultation in the constitutional reform process.
The president has even pledged that if a constitutional convention is held, civil society, NGOs and the public would “have an important role to play” and that the process would not be dominated by the influence of political parties.
The Venice Commission too spoke on similar lines when it said: “Confining the discourse to political parties in parliament without meaningful public consultation is akin to denying citizens their democratic entitlement to have a say in the shaping of the constitutional order.”
How dare this authoritative panel dictate to the Maltese government, which painstakingly went through online posts on the subject, what to do, Zammit Lewis seemed to be saying.
The ‘consultation’ worked so well, he could have continued, that six of the 10 bills in question were adopted unanimously in parliament. True, but “unanimity in parliament is an ambivalent matter”, the Venice Commission pointed out.
So, in a nutshell, the justice minister, the president and all those working on changing the constitution need only go through the various press releases, academic papers and newspaper editorials to draft the changes they think should be made. Such an exercise would, of course, make a valid contribution to the debate but only if it formed part of a wider consultation process.
Zammit Lewis and his government may decide to ignore the advice given by the Venice Commission. But they ought to at least give heed to what the president had said in his inaugural address when he expressed the wish that there should “be as widespread a process as possible, one that is based on mature and well-informed discussions...”
Malta and its people deserve no less and the government has an obligation to provide it.