Every so often, such as appeared on the page where my column used to appear on Saturday in the print Times, the discussion about whether we need a new Constitution raises its head above the parapet. Sometimes, the discussion is provoked by those who need to attract attention to themselves or to divert attention from other, more pressing, issues.
On other - perhaps synchronous - occasions, this particular flag is run up the flagpole to have it wave in the self-aggrandisement process of Premier Muscat. He seems to labour under the impression that the country Is waiting in awe for him to proclaim a "Second Republic", presumably with him taking Napoleon's place in the panoply of Grandees.
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I tended, in the recent past, towards the idea that you don't need to fix something if it works. I freely admit that I was wrong. In my own defence, I cite this perhaps peculiar notion I have that the British system of checks and balances, inherent and unwritten in their, and likewise to an extent in our, Constitution, works and works well.
The thing is, the British system only works if it is respected and the events of the past three years have proved, beyond reasonable doubt (I invoke a criminal law concept deliberately) that it is not working here. The Nationalist governments that introduced our current Constitution (you can ignore the cosmetics resorted to by Mintoff) and that operated under it, tended towards respecting the conventions, the true bulwarks of any constitution, whatever the lies about this propagated by Premier Muscat's propagandists.
The Nationalists were, it must be said, remiss in not seeing it coming. "It" is the sheer lack of respect that Labour governments over the years (I'll exclude Dr Sant's brief stint, for whatever reason, the Constitution was respected then, by and large) have shown.
This failure to provide for cynical manipulators who stick slavishly to the letter of the law (except when it is imperative to ignore this too) has brought us to the place we are now. It is symptomatic of the times that Facebook pronouncements of people like Jason Micallef and Joe Grima, hardly paragons of all liberal and constitutional virtues, are given prominence.
Like a dog walking on its hind legs, when people like this are moved to criticise their own Premier Muscat, it becomes news, but for all the wrong reasons.
So yes, we do need a new Constitution, but this must be a process that results in respect for the fundamentals of what we have, not dressing up the old one in a new coat that ignores these fundamentals. Our "new" Constitution must enforce, with vigour, respect for principles that this sorry bunch has consigned to the "waist"paper basket. You'll forgive, I trust, that chilling reference to Labour's past.
We need a Constitution, then, that reminds the people who have sworn it loyalty of the principles that underpin it.
Cabinet Ministers, for instance, need to grasp the notion of Cabinet responsibility and not act like Mayor Peppone in the Little Valley of the Po, sniping at each other and at their Boss from the sidelines while forgetting that they, whether they like it or not, are as responsible for what's going on as Premier Muscat and his Super-Duper Minister.
Senior Civil Servants, from the very top, need to grasp the notion, in their turn, that they are responsible to us, the people, not to their Prime Minister or their Minister.
Senior Civil Servants, from the very top, need to grasp the notion, in their turn, that they are responsible to us, the people, not to their Prime Minister or their Minister. Holders of high office, or rank (yes, I'm talking about the Police and Army too) have responsibilities and under the Constitution, they are not free to ignore them. They are not, they seem to fail to understand, there to let "persons holding trust(s)" act as if the Executive is their own personal plaything.
They are not, either, free to luxuriate in their own incompetence and ineffectuality and let the politicians and trust-holders foist policies and procedures on us that are entirely unacceptable. In particular, they are not free to participate in machinations and manipulations that are in the partisan but not the public domain: they may have been party hacks in another life, but now they are our, not Labour's, servants.
Dr Marlene Farrugia will not take part in the May Day demonstration - no doubt a highly attended one - that Premier Muscat's party organised, because the President called her to ask her not to attend "because of the prevailing political situation" or words to that effect.
With due respect, Her Excellency would have been better advised to place a call to the people responsible to ensure that the Rule of Law is respected in this country and remind them of their direct and unequivocal responsibility in this regard. When the Nationalists, in the mid-Eighties, had tried to organise a mass meeting in Zejtun, Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici's regime had refused permission "because of the prevailing political situation".
The reasoning was as bizarre then as it was now.
With this single phone call, intended as it was to avoid the danger of Labour's Soldiers of Steel, in their usual fashion, letting Dr Farrugia know that she was not with them, and therefore against them, Her Excellency placed the country's Back to the Future condition in sharp, and horrid focus.
It is not a really new Constitution we need, just respect for the one we have.