Twelve years ago, under the leadership of then prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami, Malta was locked in a referendum campaign to ensure the country voted in favour of joining the European Union. Like independence, 40 years before, this was a pivotal moment in Malta’s history which would either move it ineluctably in the direction of its European roots or leave it politically and economically adrift in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

The stakes were high. The political margins between Yes and No to joining the EU were narrow. Every vote counted.

It was against this political backdrop that the Maltese team negotiating with the European Commission - under the leadership of then foreign minister Joe Borg and arch-negotiator Richard Cachia Caruana – was instructed by Fenech Adami that a derogation from the EU’s Birds Directive to allow hunting in the spring was a crucial aim if they were to keep the hunters’ vote on board.

Obtaining a derogation was a necessary presentational step to ensure the overriding strategic objective of securing Malta’s entry into Europe. It was no more than a means to a vital political end. The derogation was achieved, as was Malta’s accession to the Union.

But today, 12 years later, the EU’s concession on the hunting derogation is history. The situation has changed and Malta’s cultural and political development with it. The burning issue now is whether that political fix which led to the granting of a derogation to Malta 12 years ago is any longer morally, environmentally and politically relevant.

All the evidence of the last decade points in only one direction. The hunters have abused the derogation. All the scientific arguments underline the disastrous effect it has had on bird conservation and wild life in Europe.

As importantly, the derogation – with the connivance of both political parties - has sullied Malta’s reputation throughout Europe and undermined our standing.

It is time for spring hunting in Maltato stop. The cancellation – ‘abrogation’ – of the legal notice permitting a derogation from European law will achieveprecisely that.

There is a fundamental right for the Maltese people to make their voices heard on this issue. Both major political parties have been in thrall to the hunting lobbies, betraying the silent majority for short-sighted political ends.

The Labour government came to power having first reached a grubby deal with the hunters to give them even more concessions than the Nationalist Party.

Now in Opposition, the PN leader has spurned the opportunity to adopt a fresh and more enlightened policy on hunting by cravenly opting instead for the same position as the Prime Minister. PN apologists’ attempts to spin this as a principled position “taking politics out of the referendum” are about as persuasive as describing Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler as statesmanlike.

Both parties have been tied for years to the hunting lobby, bowing to their threat of electoral blackmail. By doing so, they ignored the feelings of the vast majority of the Maltese electorate who are appalled at the lawless behaviour of this group who, year in year out, hijack the countryside and make a walk in the spring time a life-threatening endurance test.

Maltese political leaders on both sides of the divide – kowtowing and beholden, as always, to the various interest groups they seek to buy off – have been directly complicit in the illegalities regularly committed by hunters.

If the two political leaders had had their way, the referendum on the issue due to take place on April 11 would not happen. The referendum is taking place despite the politicians, not because of them.

This is our chance to tell the politicians they cannot ignore civil society simply to buy electoral support

For the first time in Malta’s constitutional history, an abrogative referendum is being held. It is a most powerful example of direct democracy in which we, the people – not the politicians – will decide the issue. The outcome will automatically remove the law allowing spring hunting from the statute books and politicians will not be able to do anything about it.

The stakes are high. If the referendum successfully results in favour of removing the law, the spring hunting issue will be settled once and for all. Politicians will no longer be able to engage in a bidding war with hunters by promising to allow them to shoot birds in the spring contrary to the terms of the EU Birds Directive.

We, the people – the silent majority - will no longer be held hostage at the barrel of a gun.

The importance of this step in Malta’s coming of age as a democratic nation cannot be overestimated. It is direct democracy at its best, emulating the model of modern representative democracy practised by the Swiss, with their admirable system of constitutional checks and balances where almost every law decided by their legislators may be put to a general vote if electors want. Malta’s abrogative referendum on April 11 is the closest we can get to that model of direct democracy.

It is an opportunity which must not be spurned. The abrogative referendum is a privilege granted under our constitution. It also comes with responsibilities. The first of these is the responsibility to vote. Voting is both a right and a duty.

On April 11, it is crucial for all Maltese voters who care about how the country is governed to have their say. This includes not only those voters who live in local council areas which are holding elections that day but also most especially those who live in councils not holding elections, such as the big conurbations of Sliema and Birkirkara and Valletta, Lija, Mdinaand others.

It is vital for voters in these areas to exercise their right to vote and they have a civic duty to do so.

There can be no solutions to social, economic, environmental and political problems in Malta that do not involve civil society exercising its citizenship rights in pursuit of the common good.

The abrogative referendum is the ultimate expression under our constitution of the role of civil society in telling our politicians in a forthright and irrevocable manner that, in the light of the experience of the last 10 years, the derogation negotiated in 2003 has proved wrong in principle and objectionable in practice.

It has had unacceptable consequences which have undermined the quality of life of the majority of people in Malta and Gozo and severe detrimental effects on migratory birds which now face extinction in Europe.

A healthy civil society should not be silent. To fail to use our vote on April 11 in the face of successive governments’ electoral chicanery on spring hunting is to betray the aspirations of society to improve itself.

The referendum is our chance to tell the politicians that they cannot ignore civil society simply to buy electoral support.

It must send a clear message to leaders of both political parties that they can no longer trim their political sails to satisfy a vested interest in society without also risking the loss of votes of the vast majority of Maltese.

I shall return to the other substantive arguments for voting No on April 11 - of conservation of bird life, access for all citizens to the countryside in the springtime and hunters’ illegalities - in a later article.

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