Change has always been a trademark of Labour governments. Change is what spurs us to keep going. The minute we stop im-proving our society is the moment we start to become irrelevant.

Historically, we have always made progress when we exited our comfort zone and worked for change; when we consulted, when we made social dialogue an important pillar of our democracy.

It is in this vein that we invited the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission to Malta, to see for itself, analyse and report on what – according to this Commission – needs to be done in order to modernise   our long-standing legislation, some of which has been in place prior to Malta’s Independence.

For instance one of the reforms we will be discussing in Parliament is the separation of the prosecution and the advisory roles which have been held by the Attorney General since 1936 and reconfirmed in the 1964 Independence constitutional set-up.

Thus, despite the fact that the Opposition tried to portray the government as a quasher of the rule of law, both in Malta and also at the European level, the truth is that the Venice Commission did not raise any concerns with regard to laws introduced by the current Labour administration. 

Instead, all their concerns referred to longstanding legislation which was left intact by the previous Nationalist administration during its long years in power.

Interestingly, the Opposition was reluctant about this Venice Commission visit. As was pointed out by some, normally it is governments that raise concerns about such visits, while Opposition parties press for them. In Malta the opposite happened.

Anyhow, the members of the Commission came to Malta some three months ago, scrutinised all the legislation they chose to review and had access to all that they needed. Following this, as happens in such exercises, they drew a report containing a list of recommendations. 

As already mentioned, not one law introduced by the incumbent government was criticised. Therefore, in reality, the Opposition cannot exactly rub their hands in glee that Malta was being criticised over some of its legislation. 

On this the Opposition said that the reforms being proposed were changes that they had intended to bring about since 1992 and later they said that they wanted to change them in 2000. But they never bit this legal bullet. 

The Venice Commission did not raise any concerns with regard to laws introduced by the current Labour administration

The Labour government, on the other hand, started straight away upon being elected in 2013 by introducing new democratic rights and civil liberties to ensure that all members of society are free to develop and can be themselves. 

We also presented significant measures towards the strengthening of good governance in the country by, for instance, passing the Whistleblower Act and removing the prescription on corruption charges for politicians, among other legal reforms.

Thus, having the Venice Commission over was another step in this process. When the Commission finished its analysis of our national legislation, we were presented with a list of proposed changes aimed at further strengthening our institutional set-up. 

We are ready for the reform. We are ready to accept that what was good even as recently as the years before 2013, now needs to change.

We delved into what was being proposed, and in less than one hundred days that we were handed the recommendations, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici did a great job in preparing the necessary work to start presenting amendments to Parliament. 

The changes proposed would require a two-thirds majority and would hence require support from the Opposition. 

It is time the Nationalists start focusing less on tarnishing the country’s reputation abroad for short-term political gains and join us in creating robust institutions for current and future generations. 

If this review process has shown anything, it is that this Labour government espoused the rule of law and good administration in all of its reforms, and welcomes further recommendations by European institutions to speed up and extend such a process.

Helena Dalli is Minister for European Affairs and Equality.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece