This summer, while debating the harm alcohol inflicts on our youths, Children’s Commissioner Helen D’Amato insisted that the legal age for drinking should be raised to 18. This, she believed, was the “threshold of maturity”. Such reasoning implies that one generally attains maturity at the age of 18.

In Article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child it is being asserted that “a child means every human being below the age of 18”, and in Article 3 it is stated that “in all actions concerning children the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”.

Taking the above into consideration and realising that 16-year-olds are still considered children under the law, since they have not yet reached full maturity, I cannot fathom how Parliament has unanimously granted 16-year-olds the right to vote in local councils. What also strikes me is the fact that Malta is only the second nation in the EU to grant voting rights to 16-year-olds.

Are our youths more mature than their European counterparts? Are the two main political parties looking into the best interests of our youths by giving them the power to vote or the interests of their parties? Why are we, adults, burdening our youths with politics so early when they need to give importance to other priorities?

Knowing how partisan our politics is – even at the local level – and how many of us blindly follow what political leaders proclaim, shouldn’t we have allowed our 16-year-olds to enjoy their youth and concentrate on more immediate matters?

Why is it that even on this issue our politicians were moved more by selfish, partisan motives rather than by the best interests of our youths?

Let us not fast-forward their political development. Let youths, gradually and freely take an interest in politics but let us not get them involved in partisan politics so early. It will do them more harm than good for it will not allow them to think objectively and make the right judgments.