Franco Debono and Jesmond Mugliett this evening both urged the government to propose Constitutional amendments to modernise governance of the country.

Mr Mugliett also urged the government to heed concerns being expressed on the ACTA agreement.

Dr Debono in his first address in the Chamber since the no confidence vote, also turned to his situation the comparison made recently between the government and a car being driven on a puncture.

The comparison was first made by Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo, who said that should the government not win the confidence vote, it would be like a car being driven on a puncture.

Dr Debono said that when a driver himself dug potholes and then drove straight into them, he did not blame the tyre for the puncture.

Indeed he said, in an obvious comparison to himself, if the tyre developed a slow puncture now, it must have been a very heavy duty tyre.  

Speaking during the debate on a Bill to amend the European Union Act, Dr Debono described how he had been for years campaigning for constitutional and institutional amendments aimed at fundamental reform of Malta's democracy.

He also referred to the forthcoming Constitutional amendment to introduce the Golden Rule to balance the national budget, as agreed by EU heads of government,

It needed to be established, he said, whether this rule would be entrenched with a qualified majority, or whether a simple majority would suffice.

Mr Mugliett, who spoke immediately after Dr Debono, observed that while Dr Debono and others had been calling for various Constitutional reforms, nothing had happened, and now there was a rush to amend the Constitution in line with what the EU had agreed.

There was nothing wrong in what was agreed in the EU, he said, but it was time that the reforms wanted by the Maltese people - such as in the method of appointment of the Broadcasting Authority - were also taken on board.

Dr Debono said the Constitution gave the country its identity and it was a shame that the people did not know much about it, despite the high rate of participation in nation elections.

It was like going to a football game without knowing the rules. 

In Italy and elsewhere, the people were constantly speaking of reforms and also holding referenda, as the ultimate expression of direct democracy. In Malta, both were extremely rare.

Dr Debono insisted that Malta needed to have effective separation of powers between the Legislative, the Executive and the Judiciary.  That meant, among other things,  that it should be parliament, not the government, which decided on the honoraria of MPs and that there should be a more modern method how judges were appointed after their nomination by the Executive.

Malta, he said, needed reforms to oil the democratic institutions and ensure there was accountability, transparency and responsibility throughout.

But there was also need for the method of appointing the President to be revisited. It did not make sense that the appointment to the most important post in the land was made by a simple majority of the House. The committee which had discussed such issues before 1987 had proposed that the appointment should be made by qualified majority, resorting to a simple majority in a second round of voting only if there was a stalemate. This was a method which should be considered. 

Parliament, too, needed to be given its dignity. For a start, it should be separate from the civil service and not run like a government department, when its role was to monitor the government.  Nor should it be undermined - as happened in the honoraria issue. The Standing Orders should be modernised. And there was nothing to stop the televised broadcasting of sittings.

Dr Debono spoke on the role of the backbench and said that people like himself, who had proposed wide-ranging change in line with was enjoyed by other countries for 30 years, should not be called rebels, but reformers.

He also insisted that it was nonsensical for anyone to suggest that the ruling party should have a guaranteed majority of more than one seat in parliament - to ensure governability.  

Such a proposal did not make sense in a country like Malta where the electoral system was based on proportional representation and the single transferable vote.