Four years ago, having just been sworn in as President of the Republic, Marie-Louise Colerio Preca inspected the troops in St George’s Square. At one point, she spotted someone she knew in the crowd and, breaking solemn protocol, gave a little wave with a cutesy, little-girl smile.

She was signalling her virtue: yes, I’m President but I’m still homely me. It was sheer pretence. Had she tried waving as minister, while watching another president inspect the troops, she would have been glared at. She could only get away with that non-presidential wave because she was president.

She was trying to have her cake and eat it. She claimed both the right to the high liturgy of the State, with all its institutions bedecked before her, and the right to interrupt the rule-governed ceremony and, so to speak, address the camera as herself. Her wave was signalling to all of us.

Now, she’s at it again. Not content simply to give her assent to the controversial, amended Embryo Protection Act, she issued an explanatory statement. She said she signed solely out of loyalty to the Constitution, which obliges the President to sign laws without delay. But she also strongly implied that she considers the amendments to put the country’s moral fibre “at risk of disintegrating”.

What’s wrong with this? It’s the pretence that she’s drinking from a poisoned chalice when she’s really trying to have her cake and eat it. Maybe she’s pretending even with herself but that’s beside the point, other than to clear her of hypocrisy.

Had she limited herself to explaining that she gave her assent to the law in accordance with her duties as stipulated in the Constitution, no one could have rightly objected. She would have drawn attention to her obligation and her unspoken personal dissent would have been obvious.

Instead, she drew attention to her struggle with conscience, clearly suggesting she believes the consequences of the law will be moral catastrophe, no less. Why all this song and dance if a President’s assent is impersonal?

Once more, she wants to have it both ways. She wants us to regard her as both President and Queen of Hearts, she of trembling conscience. She wants to claim both that as President she must automatically assent to a law (true) and that she personally is disturbed at the grave damage she believes the law will do.

However, your judgement can’t be taken seriously if you sign a law that you believe will bring about moral catastrophe. Signing a law you believe is merely damaging is one thing; signing up to cataclysm is another. If you’re ready to sign up to it, then you don’t really believe what you say.

She has less than a year left, the law is not urgent, but he didn’t sit her out. Evidently, Joseph Muscat knows her well

To refuse to sign, of course, means immediate resignation. Having resigned, there would be no conflict with the legislators. Resignation implies full loyalty to the democratic process. You know the law must be passed. You just don’t want a hand in what you believe will be a disaster.

There would be no constitutional crisis. The Constitution specifies what needs to be done in case of a vacancy.

There wouldn’t even necessarily be a delay in the signing of the law. It has been a long time coming. The President could have informed the Prime Minister of her intention to resign if the law landed on her desk. The Prime Minister could then have taken the preparatory steps needed to replace her quickly.

Let’s be clear about what it means to say that Coleiro Preca should have resigned, since certain critics and supporters are both getting it wrong.

By signing the law, Coleiro Preca did not betray the country. But if she believes what she says, then she betrayed herself. It’s to avoid that fate that she should have resigned. Instead, she publicly rationalised her self-betrayal.

Her supporters say resignation would have been a ‘non-starter’ and achieved nothing. True but irrelevant. For who’s trying to achieve anything here? Only Coleiro-Preca.

She’s the one who dragged personal conscience into her press statement. Her aim is to gain public approval and justification as a civic moral leader. To retort that she should have resigned is simply to say: given the grave risks you (not we) are depicting, anything less than resignation sounds hollow.

We should not collude with the pretence that the issue pitted conscience against the Constitution. If there’s a conflict here, it’s between two personal desires: to stick up for what she believes and to remain President. There’s a cherry on the cake that Coleiro Preca wants to eat. By saying she signed only out of loyalty to the Constitution, she’s implying that a President is disloyal if he intimates he’d rather resign.

That’s a slur on her two immediate predecessors. About a dozen years ago, Eddie Fenech Adami let it be known to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi he would be unprepared to sign an IVF law, should it be passed. Five years ago, George Abela let it be known to Joseph Muscat that he would not be prepared to sign a law passed that introduced gay civil unions. Were they showing disloyalty to the Constitution and democratic process?

Of course not. Their judgement was wrong but their loyalty was firmly in the right place. They did not place their conscience above the Constitution. What they did was well within what it permits.

They displayed their loyalty to the democratic process by giving the Prime Minister due notice. Had the government gone ahead with passing the law, it would have had time to prepare to fill the automatic presidential vacancy.

Fenech Adami and Abela were taken at their word by, respectively, Gonzi and Muscat – both of whom, each for reasons of partisan calculation not constitutional necessity, decided to wait for the incumbent president’s retirement. Fenech Adami and Abela were reckoned to be unwavering.

With Coleiro Preca, however, Muscat acted differently. She has less than a year left, the law is not urgent, but he didn’t sit her out. Evidently, Muscat knows her well. He knew that, in the end, after she stopped wringing her hands, she’d rationalise her way into signing. Asked about her explanatory statement, Chris Fearne, the minister who steered the Bill through Parliament, said she had the right to her personal opinion. Translation: let her eat cake.

That shrug is a fitting response.

So is scorn.

ranierfsadni@europe.com