New chamber proposed

Malta should consider setting up a second chamber where members could be elected according to universal suffrage, Prof. Peter Serracino Inglott suggests in his column in The Sunday Times today.

This would not be on the basis of where members have their official residence, but according to other more significant criteria such as work, age or gender. Prof. Serracino Inglott, a leading academic and adviser to various administrations down the years, made his comments ahead of the opening of the new parliament on May 10.

He says that in such a chamber women would be as numerous as their proportion of the population, and so would young people. There might also be the possibility of 'wise men', such as former presidents or former chief justices having a forum through which they could still contribute formally to the governance of the nation.

It might also serve to allow non-party technical experts to be included in the Cabinet like in the US.

While suggesting that the President should be given broader powers, Prof. Serracino Inglott says that Parliament should set up a consultative body in which civil society participates and submits drafts for discussion.

For a long time, Prof. Serracino Inglott said he had been hoping for something like a constituent assembly summoned to redraft the Constitution from scratch. See page 13.