More than a few people will wonder what the current stand-off between the two main political parties is all about. Parliamentary procedure and pairing, if they mean anything at all to the average citizen, are not exactly the stuff to stir interest and emotions. Not so for the Nationalist and Labour parliamentary groups. They are at it hammer and tongs because of them.
The meetings of the House of Representatives have to be regulated and there is broad leeway about how that can be done. Usually the government of the day puts forward a procedural motion at the start of each session of Parliament, specifying when the House should meet, times of meetings and such details. The motion does not always find unanimous approval, but neither does it end up being a cause for parliamentary war.
This time it is a whole deal different. The government has just come up with a motion which the opposition feels is so extreme as to represent an abuse of the Standing Orders of the House, even of the Constitution itself. The motion arose after insistence by the opposition regarding when a motion of its own should be debated. The motion concerns the controversial proposal to dig up part of the grounds of St John's Co-Cathedral to extend the space used to exhibit the cathedral's precious wares.
The controversy is widespread. The opposition's motion does not only reflect its own opinions about whether St John's should be dug up. It has a heavy touch of naughtiness in it. It is common knowledge that at least three Nationalist backbench MPs are against excavating what was termed as a five-level quarry in the heart of Valletta, and in St John's at that.
The MPs, as it happens, are three of a suspected kind. One aspired to high office but is now unlikely ever to gain it. Two are former ministers ditched by Lawrence Gonzi when he formed his downsized cabinet after the March election.
Strong rumour has it that they are a disgruntled trio. Not so disgruntled as to dream of bringing down their government. But peeved enough to be perceived to murmur loudly their lack of agreement about the way some government things are being done.
The opposition's naughtiness lies in the fact that the government, elected with a relative majority of the popular vote, has a slim seats majority of one. The opposition, one should assume, is not naïve enough to expect that any Nationalist MP would actually vote against his government. Yet, even if there was less than total agreement in contributions to the debate on the opposition's St John motion, the government could be mightily embarrassed. Surely not to the extent the Labour government of 1996 to 1998 was by the goings on of Dom Mintoff. Still, embarrassment is embarrassment.
The government insists that its procedure motion - which would do away with votes being taken on the same date they are called, but would be bunched on a Wednesday instead - had nothing to do with the St John's Co-Cathedral issue. It admitted it had much to do with the fact that the opposition was not prepared to enter into an agreement on pairing, but wanted to treat each case on its own merits.
Pairing is not about being two of a kind. It relates to opposing MPs staying away from votes in twos at a time. Thereby during a vote the parliamentary balance would not be disturbed. In short, it means that when the government has a tiny majority, it would not risk defeat on any vote called, on whatever issue.
Pairing is known to be based in decency when, say, an MP is sick and unable to attend sittings. It is also based in formal agreement to ensure that the government can propose business safe in the knowledge that it won't be outvoted, unless any of its members stay away or - unholy of unholies - votes against.
With ministers nowadays having to see to EU commitments abroad even when the House is sitting, lack of pairing makes the government's life very difficult. The Nationalists, rather naively and contradictorily seeing that they themselves have been known to refuse pairing to a Labour government in the past, seem to expect pairing as a right. When the Labour side jibbed at that, Gonzi, drawing on his deep knowledge of parliamentary procedure, came up with a motion intended to pull the pairing and snap-voting-calls rug from under the opposition's feet.
And so it came to pass that, with the economy beginning to feel the tremors of the recession, society and economic operators at a loss about how to cope with massive water and electricity bills, minorities agonising over the absence of important rights to them, Parliament is spending valuable time discussing procedure. It is really time for our parliamentarians to be slightly more mature.
The opposition can make the government's life uncomfortable, but it won't topple it, and it cannot deny that it was the Nationalists who won the general election and the right to govern. The government can ride roughshod over the opposition with an extreme motion. Nevertheless it cannot ignore the fact that the opposition has its traditional rights, which include manoeuvring in the House, no matter how senseless and irksome it seems at times in the context of urgent national business.
The country watches and wonders what it has done to deserve this state of affairs.