Undoubtedly, there are various aspects of our constitutional law that need to be readdressed and this to cater for present realities. The issue had even been taken up by the President who has been calling for an open discussion in this regard.
... some of the topics covered... were, until very recently, regarded as no-go areas- José Herrera
At the beginning of this legislature, a joint parliamentary committee was set up to update certain aspects of the Constitution, the electoral laws and even the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives.
Unforeseen circumstances, however, led to a deadlock in the workings of the said committee. In fact, the opposition felt it had to withdraw from the committee in order to protest against what it termed as unacceptable disloyalty shown by the government towards one of its members of Parliament.
A few years back, on the prompting of government backbencher Franco Debono, a new parliamentary select committee was established: the Recodification and Consolidation of Laws Select Committee. This committee is chaired by Dr Debono himself with Nationalist MP Francis Zammit Dimech and myself sitting as members.
Once we got together to try and steer the committee in the right direction we soon realised what wide terms of reference it had. We decided to take an audacious attitude in this regard and tackle a broad spectrum of issues. In this respect, we gradually ended up taking up where the above-mentioned joint parliamentary committee had stopped.
Foremost among the work carried out by our committee was the drafting from scratch of an administrative code, which, I feel, should be regarded as our magnum opus. In this endeavour, we tried to cover all aspects of good governance.
In such an exercise we obviously had to propose amendments even to the Constitution itself. We are proposing, for example, amendments to strengthen the independence of the judiciary, the redefining of the role of the Attorney General, the creation of an Administrative Court, more executive and political authority to the President, albeit within the framework of the parliamentary democracy system we embrace, the strengthening of the independence of Parliament itself and, finally, proposals to better define political accountability.
Without doubt, these were the main issues to be dealt with in the aforementioned, now defunct parliamentary committee.
It is worth noting that we have also had occasion to address the legal framework regarding the press. Our aim here is to consolidate and update all present legislation in this regard in order to, on the one hand, ascertain the freedom of the press, which is sacrosanct in any democracy, and, at the same instance, to try and find the delicate balance necessary in order to make journalists more accountable from an ethical point of view.
Presently, it is worth noting that we are tackling the issue of party financing, which has been on the political agenda for far too long but which, as yet, has not been dealt with in a concrete fashion.
Earlier, I opted for the word audacious and I feel it was the apt word to use because some of the topics covered by the committee were, until very recently, regarded as no-go areas.
This, however, surely augurs well because it clearly indicates that Parliament has come a long way from the time it served mainly as a rubber stamp for the Executive. For us parliamentarians, it is a new parliamentary experience. I dare say that, today, Parliament has finally come of age and has, in fact, taken its place as the sovereign authority of the land, as it should be, because it is the only institution that resonates the popular mandate.
I was also happy to note the full cooperation and enthusiasm shown by our numerous guests from all spheres of society who, over the years, participated in the various discussions. These have had the opportunity to make very valid contributions regarding the various pieces of legislation we are proposing.
On the other hand, however, it must be kept in mind that the function of our committee is to recommend and not to execute. It will, therefore, remain the prerogative of the government of the day to take heed and push our proposals further and, hopefully, draft the relative Bills.
This notwithstanding, however, the standing committees of Parliament are not simply any other board or commission but are the lunga manus of Parliament itself. It would, therefore, be nonsensical were the government to ignore downright the work carried out by such parliamentary committees because, by doing so, it would be ignoring Parliament itself.
It appears, however, that this will, hopefully, not be the case and this primarily for reasons I have just entertained.
Yet, only time will give us the answers and she still shall see whether the gains made regarding Parliament’s supremacy will once again be sidelined or not.
Dr Herrera, a Labour MP, is the opposition’s main spokesman on justice.