It has finally happened. A President of Malta has done the constitutionally unthinkable and expressed his intention not to sign a Bill if approved finally by the House of Representatives.

Within constitutional circles it was widely mooted that the unthinkable would have probably occurred should the House ever pass a Bill legalising abortion. At least two former presidents said they would have refused to sign such a Bill on grounds of conscience.

Yet, until now, the carefully guarded secret of Abela’s dissent on the Civil Union Bill calls for very serious constitutional and democratic reflection.

The Constitution constructs the delicate relationship between the President and the House of Representatives in favour of the Prime Minister on the basis he enjoys the majority of the elected majority.

The President, of course, is not directly elected, but appointed by the simple majority of the House, not even by the two-thirds majority, as is very often mistakenly stated.

The Constitution therefore imposes on the President the duty not to contrast the will of the majority of the House and is obliged to sign “without delay” any Bill passed through all the three readings within the House and finally approved by the majority.

Coleiro Preca’s presidency begins with a totally clean sheet, with no strings attached

President Abela’s decision is therefore totally unprecedented and brings with it very serious constitutional implications.

The first and most important one is that without the President’s signature there is no manner in which the Bill may become law. It puts a definitive constitutional spanner in the State’s legislative machine.

The only remedy open to the Prime Minster is draconian. He may propose to the House the President’s removal from office. Here again, there is no requirement of the two-thirds majority, like the case of the judiciary.

The process of removing the President is therefore procedurally much simpler and stands little chance of stalling on procedural grounds as happened to the motion for the removal of Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco.

To remove a president there is no need for the Commission for the Administration of Justice to investigate the case since there is no requirement for any alleged presidential misbehaviour to be “proven”.

However, the remarkable aspect in the President’s dissent to the Civil Union Bill is the Prime Minister’s extreme caution in handling the constitutional crisis; it indicates clearly that the President is more than just a figurehead, as is often heralded.

The popularity and widespread respect President Abela has earned are strong considerations which must have urged the Prime Minster to weather the crisis more than confront it.

And here lies the true reason why President Abela’s position creates a constitutional crisis. How much is the President reflecting national disquiet on the Bill still being debated in Parliament?

Undoubtedly, the Prime Minister’s caution must make him believe that the nation still retains within it considerable scepticism on the Bill in its present state.

The very least thing the government would want at this delicate stage of the parliamentary debate is a motion for removal of a popular president in the throes of a crisis of conscience.

This must logically be the case since the Prime Minister, as was seen, holds all the constitutional cards in his hands which are supplemented, to boot, with the massive political majority of nine seats.

Muscat would surely have acted very differently and with greater resolve had he not felt that the President’s conscientious scepticism may, in fact, be widely shared.

The Prime Minister therefore has decided to win time until April 4 when the new president will be installed in office.

It is of course idle speculation at this stage to try to predict what the new president will do when confronted with the Bill approved finally by the House. Firstly, the new president is in a totally different situation from that of the outgoing president.

Abela’s stand was strengthened by his presidency reaching its natural completion of five years, which may not be constitutionally renewed. The new president, however, needs to consider the impact any similar decision could have on the presidency for the entire five years to come.

For sure, it is highly reductive to try to guess the future outcome based simply on Marie-Lousie Coleiro Preca being an outgoing Cabinet minister.

Her constitutional role is completely different since she is now no longer bound by any type of collective or individual responsibility with her former Cabinet colleagues.

The oath of the office of the presidency guarantees as much. The political figure of Coleiro Preca ends on April 4 and her presidency begins with a totally clean sheet with no strings attached.

Speculation therefore is not only harmful but also futile. In other countries, temporary constitutional solutions were resorted to prevent the removal of a loved Head of State declaring conscientious objection but which nonetheless allowed the coming into force of the controversial Bill.

However, it needs to be constitutionally stressed that any such diplomatic happy endings, if needed, depend solely on the government’s goodwill and are far from constitutionally guaranteed.