Malta has a historic opportunity to reform the way it is governed. It is immeasurably sad that it has taken the slaying of a journalist to focus minds like never before on the violations in the rule of law being perpetrated by this government and on the farcical checks and balances that permit power to be wielded untrammelled in so many areas of governance, under any administration.

Our Constitution, which is intended to promote the functioning of a liberal de­mocracy, may be sufficient to safeguard fundamental rights and guide the actions of politicians and public officials of reasonably good faith. But it is gruesomely inadequate to prevent powerful figures from taking advantage of its weaknesses for personal gain. The supreme law of the land has not withstood the test of time in the area of abuse of power.

Otherwise, the government would not have been able to ditch four commissioners of police until it found a dedicated bootlicker ready to look the other way. And the ‘long arm of the law’ would not have been amputated when action was required against high officials suspected of money laundering. Such appalling lack of equality before the law would not have been so easy to achieve without legislation that places the police and other law enforcement bodies so firmly under political control.

Under a legal regime solid on the sepa­ration of powers, the government would not have been able to appoint judges and magistrates so close to the party in power, undermining public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. Malta is, shamefully, the only EU country where the final word on the appointment and promotion of ‘independent’ judges and magistrates is the prerogative of a prime minister.

A Constitution in which the principle of institutional independence was loudly proclaimed would not have persons and authorities intended to scrutinise government actions firmly in the government’s pocket. It would have been an obstacle to the creation of a planning authority that dishes out building permits, or a public service whose heads are purged, in sync with the electoral cycle.

A supreme law that held out transparency as a vital ingredient in a healthy democracy would not have tolerated the secrecy surrounding major government contracts that put millions of taxpayer euros at risk. And a constitutional order under which the rule of law was in­evitably applied may not have spawned a state of affairs in which Malta and Mafia are mentioned in the same breath by the foreign press.

One function of a well-designed Constitution is to protect the people from their politicians, because hardly all of them are motivated primarily by a desire to serve the common good. That being the case, the political parties should have no part in the running of the long-promised constitutional convention. On this one, they must take a back seat.

Look what happens when they don’t, when they look out for their own interests: party financing laws take decades to come into being; a previous constitutional convention is still-born precisely because a glaringly divisive politician is deliberately appointed as its head; and the recommendations of the Commission for the Holistic Reform of the Justice System languish on the shelf.

A new Constitution is for the peo­ple: it should embody their highest values and aspirations, cast in stone their freedom from tyranny, contain the wisdom and foresight to last generations. So it is clearly not for politicians, so many of them short-term and self-interested in their views, to meddle in its creation.

The convention, which must be convened without delay, should be steered by a panel of top local and international experts, headed by someone of stature to act as a guarantor of its integrity and loyalty to national needs. The international perspective is important to light up the blind spots that inevitably come with being seeped in local legal customs.

The convention should consult widely, tapping the strands of thought that run through all strata of society and synthesising them into a set of proposals for consideration by Parliament. Under the full glare of public scrutiny, the House would then hammer out the final draft, which should be submitted to a referendum during the 2019 MEP elections, as suggested by the Opposition.

More than a booming economy, ephemeral as that is, a new constitution that cements the rule of law in society would be a worthy legacy for any prime minister. And it would ensure Daphne Caruana Galizia did not die in vain.