This is the first opportunity I have to express myself publicly following the brutal and despicable assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia on October 16. I add my voice to the many who have condemned her murder and all that it represents in terms of the attempt by sinister forces operating in our midst to instil fear and stifle freedom of expression while stepping up their efforts to exert control on the state of affairs of our nation.

First and foremost, it was an act of premeditated murder – putting an end to the life of a human being and robbing her husband of a wife, her children of a mother, and her parents of a daughter.

However, Daphne Caruana Galizia was more than just anyone. Her pen and her laptop were two very powerful weapons that clearly annoyed some to the extent that a conscious evil decision was taken to silence her forever either to ‘punish’ her for something she had written or to prevent other facts she may have been about to write on from seeing the light of day.

I too demand that justice be done. The perpetrators need to be sought out and punished. Should this not happen, it would mean that the sinister forces in our midst may indeed have gained the upper hand.

Regrettably, over the past decades, a mentality has taken hold in these islands where one almost considers himself a hero for managing to circumvent the system. Just over a year ago, I had written an article entitled ‘Getting away with murder’ in which I spoke about how we are becoming “a bunch of egocentric individuals who just care about themselves and their own selfish interests”, aided and abetted by the fact that many times, authorities at all levels just turn a blind eye to infringements of the law, even the most minor.

I am truly fed up of constantly living in a country where not only do individuals take the law into their own hands, but where authorities seem to fail to act in defence of those perturbed by this flagrant and widespread mentality.

Many of us can recount numerous incidents when we were faced with a situation of lawlessness. Trying to do something about it often leads to frustration and an attitude of ‘why bother’. A sense of helplessness is taking over, not aided by the fact that everything we do or say appears to be politicised. Individuals acting in good faith are labelled one way or another with anything they do or say being manipulated. Indeed, no one can claim to be neutral. However, some of us refuse to be stereotyped and to allow our freedom of expression to be curtailed or circumvented by those who would attribute motives that clearly do not exist.

Following the assassination of Caruana Galizia and the way we responded and reacted to it, accusations have been made regarding the robustness of our institutions. In my view, we can no longer postpone the debate we need to have on the overhaul of our Constitution. Calls for national unity must be translated into a genuine effort to bring about the necessary constitutional changes that will guarantee that checks and balances are not only in place but also allowed to function as they should.

Calls for national unity must be translated into a genuine effort to bring about the necessary constitutional changes that will guarantee checks and balances

I have a couple of suggestions. The first regards the office of the head of State. Without casting any shadow over the manner in which all our presidents since 1974 have gone about their business, it is high time that we revise the manner by which our president is elected. The current system only requires a simple majority of members of the House of Representatives. To better represent national unity as well as to provide the holder of the office with greater moral authority, a wider majority is necessary. We can also look into a system such as exists in Italy, where representatives of the regions participate in the election of the president.

My other proposal relates to the executive and the legislative organs of the State. Since we follow the Westminster model, the prime minister and all ministers and parliamentary secretaries must be members of the House of Representatives. There are two consequences: firstly, a prime minister is limited in having to choose his or her cabinet from among the elected members of parliament. In the second place, most MPs sitting on the government benches end up in the cabinet.

Currently, 25 of the 37 government MPs form the executive. In a two-party system such as ours where almost inevitably the party in government commands a majority in the House, the distinction between the executive and the legislature, fundamental to the democratic notion of the separation of powers, becomes very blurred indeed.

The role of Parliament is not to govern but to legislate and to scrutinise the government and hold it to account. Hence, I believe that the time has come to decouple the two organs of the State. We need a parliament composed of members who are totally dedicated to being parliamentarians. Moreover, we can no longer tolerate having a part-time parliament meeting in the evening three days a week.

Ministers and parliamentary secretaries (and while at it let’s change their nomenclature and call them state secretaries or junior ministers or whatever) would then be freed of parliamentary duties and become totally focused on their business of government. In addition, they would not be subject to pressure from constituents because they would no longer have to contest elections.

Naturally, a system would have to be in place that would ensure the government remains answerable to Parliament. Parliamentary hearings such as occur in the US, could, for example, ensure greater transparency in the appointment of members of the Cabinet. Individual and collective ministerial responsibility to Parliament would also need to be retained.

I do appreciate that what I am suggesting is not as simple as it may sound, but I am confident that a process of constitutional reform that would not be carried out just by the political parties behind closed doors, could sort out the detail.

Rather than blame each other for the state we are in, now is the time for us to come together as one nation and to respond to the murder of Caruana Galizia and to this attempt on our freedom of expression by not being afraid to tackle head on what truly ails this country of ours so that we can live in a country where we all feel that we are treated equally under the law and where all our institutions represent our highest and most noble aspirations.