As the date of the abrogative referendum on spring hunting draws near, there is a question that each politician should be made to answer in public: will he or she be voting in favour or against the retention of spring hunting?
MEPs David Casa and Alfred Sant were the latest to publicly declare their vote on national television. Mr Casa said he will be voting yes, and Dr Sant said his vote would either be a yes or an abstention, as he had reservations on the referendum mechanism.
Their stated position follows the general trend in favour of maintaining spring hunting among MPs. When this newspaper carried out a straw poll of 20 MPs – 10 from each side – on their voting intentions, only three Opposition MPs said they would vote to abolish spring hunting and they all wanted to remain anonymous.
The argument that the issue of spring hunting is apolitical is false. It is, in fact, very politically charged, which explains MPs’ reluctance in taking a position against in public. But public it should be because hunting has an impact on people’s sensitivity towards the environment, conservation and the rule of law, among other issues.
Voters have the right to know what their representatives in Parliament stand for even if, at the referendum, politicians would be voting like any other Maltese citizen.
The hunters’ federation got the wrong end of the stick when, soon after the date of the referendum was announced, they controversially lodged a protest against two local councillors for publicly declaring that they will be voting against spring hunting. The FKNK claimed that, in declaring their voting intentions on Attard local council’s official Facebook page, the councillors had acted unethically.
The Local Governance Board, whose functions include investigating complaints against local councillors, came to a swift decision in councillors’ favour. It was hardly the kind of outcome the hunters’ federation had been hoping for because the board went so far as to say that councillors not only had a right but even a duty to inform their constituents of their opinion on political matters, including the issue of spring hunting.
The fact that both leaders of the Nationalist and Labour parties have given their MPs a ‘free vote’ should have served to help politicians come out of the woodwork. The fact that they do not speak up is the reason why Malta had to come to this point: a referendum on spring hunting.
The referendum is effectively a vote of no confidence in elected politicians. Conscientious voters, increasingly aware of the country’s deteriorating environment, have had enough of successive governments playing second fiddle to the hunters’ lobby. That lobby used to be so strong that it threatened Malta’s European Union membership bid had a derogation for spring not been negotiated.
That danger no longer exists today. What we have instead is an electorate exasperated by hunters’ abuses, who want to see laws properly enforced or who have simply had enough of seeing the country’s receding countryside occupied by gun-wielding hunters.
Politicians who choose to stick their neck out and speak out against spring hunting are bound to get some flak. But there are discerning and mature voters too who will no longer put up with backroom charades.
Former European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello put it very aptly when asked if politicians were in duty-bound to reveal their voting intentions. They do not have a legal obligation, he said, but they are morally and politically obliged to make their intentions known.