The vote abroad

The Bill to amend the General Elections Act gets its first reading on Monday. Among the most “innovative” of measures is the introduction of a “rolling register” allowing persons who turn 18 on the eve of an election to vote. What is conspicuous in its absence is any improvement with regard to the status of voters based abroad. This, my friends, is 2012. Malta is a member of the European Union and a huge proportion of its nationals have opted to make use of the rights of workers to free movement. A large number of Maltese are now gainfully employed as fonctionnaires within the European institutions.

I will not even entertain for one second any objection that goes in the way of “you cannot vote for Malta’s government if you do not live there”. It is rubbish, xenophobic and populist in so many ways. Take French voters for example. In the last elections France had a new constituency for Northern Europe. French expats were entitled to vote in places such as London. The Number of registered voters in the UK were around 75,000 with approximately 23,000 turning out for an evenly split vote between Sarkozy and Hollande (about 11,900 vs 11,500 votes). The United Kingdom allows its citizens to register for voting abroad with a sort of 15-year expiry date (to register to vote as an overseas voter you have to have registered to vote in the previous 15 years).

Our neighbours Italy also famously have an expat constituency- remember Cassola? Now I am prepared to accept the argument (grudgingly) that Malta is not yet ready to dedicate a seat in parliament to its expat constituency but it is downright impractical to persist with the current situation of rent-a-planeload voting instead of having the rational solution of voting in embassies.

What counts for Mater Dei and old people’s homes with more than 30 residents should surely count for BeNeLux, London and maybe Paris. No?

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Ordinary Salaries & Extraordinary People

Labour’s latest rant about Richard Cachia Caruana and his salarial status within the government structures has provided the world with proof, if any was needed, that the PL still sits uncomfortably with its usurpation of parliamentary power for a very private lynching affair. Following a statement by the Labour communications office we read the following comment by the unnecessarily anonymous “Labour Party Spokesman” (best not be able to identify who is behind the latest excuse for politicking):

“Can the Prime Minister explain which civil servant takes a terminal benefit and transitional facility,” a Labour party spokesperson told MaltaToday. “This is proof that Cachia Caruana was not just any civil servant but is the equivalent of a minister. Labour is right when saying Cachia Caruana is accountable to the scrutiny of parliament, because he is not a civil servant like the others.”

The telling bit is the last sentence. Labour (or in any case its anonymous spokesperson) is painfully trying to square the circle of “accountability of civil servants”. The motion presented in parliament by Luciano Busuttil et al flew in the face of all parliamentary convention and practice. Labour would love to seem to be partisans of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty and have gone to great lengths to sing to the tune of “strengthening democracy’s greatest institution”. When push comes to shove though, political expediency easily trumps parliamentary convention.

On the law

Our constitutional system is a hybrid one. We do not have the “historic” unwritten constitution in Diceyan terms and questions of supremacy are (currently) controversially divided between the written constitution and parliament. What we definitely have inherited from UK jurisprudence is the system of parliamentary conventions. In Dicey’s words:

“(A) set of rules (that) consists of conventions, understandings, habits or practices which, though they may regulate the conduct of… officials, are not in reality laws at all since they are not enforced by the courts”. (The Law of the Constitution)

Among those conventions is that of “ministerial responsibility” that can be both “individual” or “collective”. The modern form of ministerial responsibility is based on two ports – (1) a minister’s political or administrative competence, (2) a minister’s personal morality. The original application of the competence rule held ministers answerable to Parliament for every action undertaken by their department’s civil servants. Ministers took credit for civil servants’ achievements and were expected to resign for any grave errors committed by their staff. The corollary to this is that individual civil servants would not face parliamentary scrutiny or public criticism for their own failures.

In time the expanding nature of government administration led to an adaptation of this conventional rule. The effect of this adaptation was not however that of bringing civil servants within the ambit of parliamentary scrutiny but rather the additional requirement of proof: that a Minister was aware of the or personally involved in a particular decision before being forced to resign.

On the person

In the Cachia Caruana case (can we call it parliamentary impeachment or would that risk opening another can of legal worms?) we clearly have a bypass of the convention of Ministerial responsibility. Parliament dragged a civil servant (ordinary or extraordinary is irrelevant) before it and proceeded to vote. Even if we set aside the fact that the actual accusation was never proved (the Wikileaks accusation did not, if you pardon the pun, hold water) and that the vote was carried merely in Sicilian vendetta style we are still left with an even more important consideration. The Labour party motion blatantly ignored all forms of parliamentary convention for the sake of political expediency.

We now have the baying hounds drawing attention to Richard Cachia Caruana’s remuneration. Forget the return of Maltese relativism for a moment. The issue is much more serious constitutionally speaking. The current trend among the Labour party is to highlight their dedication to the real constitution – the real parliament they say, not the multi-million building in Valletta. They have shot tirade upon tirade at the party in government for supposedly diminishing the role of parliament. When it came to turning the parliament into a vehicle of political expedience the very same Labour party had no qualms but to ride roughshod over any semblance of parliamentary convention. It did not even bother to pretend.

The afterthought has led to a sort of backtracking. It is now crucial for Labour to try to prove that RCC was a kind of Minister – not a civil servant. It is crucial because that way they think that they would save their face. What they are actually doing is providing further proof that their knee-jerk activity acting as a second-fiddle to Franco and JPO.

Then again what do you expect from a party that seems to be determined to introduce the very progressive system of government by facebook?

 

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The Evils of a Party System

Albert Venn Dicey Vinerian Professor of English Law at the University of Oxford in the 1880s authored one of the classics on the British constitutional system entitled “Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution”. Dicey’s groundwork on English constitutional history and principles may be described as legendary. In this post I would like to summarise/list part of an unpublished lecture by Dicey that was prepared in July 1898 – in the hope of provoking a discussion on the merits and demerits of the UK party system as inherited by us in Malta.

The lecture was called “Memorandum on Party Government” and he deals with the pros and cons of the party political system as developed within the British constitutional structure.

In section C of this lecture he outlines the “Inherent Demerits of Party System” as follows:

1. It makes impossible consideration of measures on merits.

2. An Opposition which cannot carry out its own policy maims & renders abortive the policy of the Government.

3. The Party system involves a waste of capacity.

4. The Party system leads to an exaggeration of the points on which the whole of one party, e.g. the Tories, are supposed to agree & to be opposed to the whole of their opponents, e.g. the Whigs.

“(…) it is still true that the party system intensifies the tendency of politicians & their followers to look upon their own side as the party of the good, & upon the opposite side as the faction of bad men, whence, among other evils, results the sort of political hypocrisy which leads men of sense & merit to overlook or palliate the decline in moral principle of a party which they have at one time held, perhaps rightly, to represent public virtue.

The patent evils, in short, of the Party system, even at its best, are that it presents men from considering measure on their own merits, that it produces the kind of vicious compromise by which an opposition maims a policy which it cannot resist, that it involves a waste of political capacity, that it exaggerates the differences which divide one party from another & promotes the idea which is often false, & at best only partially true, that one party in the State has a monopoly of public virtue.”

In the next section (D) Dicey expounds “The Conditions Necessary for the Beneficial Action of the Party System” and he divides them into four broad conditions, namely:

1. All parties in the State must be loyal to the Constitution.

2. The distinction between the two parties in the State must depend upon real differences of principle.

3. Parties must not be kept together mainly by personal interest.

4. There must if possible exist only two important parties.

5. The nation must take a real interest in Politics.

And what happens when these conditions fail? Well here is Dicey’s answer:

“(…) all these evils may be summed up under one head whenever they exist they mean that parties are degenerating into factions, that is to say that they have become or are becoming, bodies of men not bound together by community of principles but either by self interest or by the feelings of partisanship“.

Finally Dicey also suggests two obvious ways of mitigating the negative effects of the party system:

1. The judicial & administrative bodies of the country should be kept as far as possible from the sphere of the Party.

2. Large questions of general policy should whenever possible be so determined that they may be placed outside the realm of the party.

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Toroq fil-baħar

Il-fekruna għażlet il-Ġnejna biex tħalli erba’ bajdiet fir-ramel qabel lebbtet lejn il-baħar frisk u nadif ta’ l-ewwel jiem tas-sajf. Ma naħsibx li jeżistu fuljetti informattivi li jitqassmu fost il-fawna Mediterranja li jgħarrfu lil klijenti prospettivi dwar l-aħjar post fejn titfa’ bajdtek u tħalli ‘l uliedek jittantaw xortihom. Is-sinjura Fekruna ma tistax tistħajjilha f’xi kont ta’ Lewis Carroll tikkonsulta l-brochures splendidi tal-Malta Tourist Association iħeġġu l-koppji fkieren żgħar jiġu bi ħġarrhom jrabbu familja (jew mill-inqas iħalluha tfaqqas) ġewwa l-gżira ta’Pawlu.

Għażlet il-gżira ta’ Franco u ta’ Richard minn jedda il-fekruna. Forsi kien att ta’ disperazzjoni – kif iktar tispjega fatt li kien ilu ma’ jseħħ mis-sittinijiet? Il-fkieren kienu donnhom ddikkjaraw bojkott tal-gżira meta raw n-nies jindifnu fil-miżbla. “Le xbin tlaqna lejn l-Ellespontu u l-gżejjer tagħha hawn m’hawnx ħlief oqbra imbajda u qniepen.” Għadda ż-żmien u l-fekruna donnha tittanta xortiha. Ilna minn żmien Rio ’92 ma nduqu soppa tal-fkieren. Issa illegali. Għaldaqshekk kolloxsew. M’hemmx ċans li t-tfal tagħha jispiċċaw f’xi bouillabaisse post-modern f’xi ristorant mibni fuq il-foreshore kifsuppost.

Kienet taf forsi bil-programmi estensivi ta’ Joseph? Saret taf li ħadd ma hu se jitħalla joqgħod lura f’Malta progressiva? Kienux is-sireni progressivi li saħħruha bil-kant ta’ Tagħlim, Taħriġ u Xogħol? Ifhem, l-Ellespontu kien ilu ma jbandal hekk minn żmien Xerxes. Għadhom sa’ llum jiddu f-widnejn il-fkieren il-ħoss tal-frosta inkazzata u rrabbjata tfaqqa’ fuq wiċċ il-baħar. Illum hemm problemi oħra. Flus ma hemmx. Futur ikreh. Aħjar immorru Malta fejn minkejja kull sforz tal-iżolani li jitfgħu il-knaten fuq saqajhom l-affarijiet jidhru mexjin sew.

Imma żgur sinjura fekruna? Tifhimnix ħażin. Wara kollox ħaqqek grazzi talli għażilt gżiritna biex tiżra t-tama u l-ħajja. Imma din mhux gżira ta’ ward u żahar. Ilna nitfgħu knaten fuq saqajna. Fil-parlament mhux talli ma kibrux fjuri imma issa intlejna kakti u tingiż. Mhux dik l-agħar sinjura, l-agħar x’ħin tara l-kilba għall-poter u d-dominju tal-assurd. L-assurd iqarrabna wisq mad-dinja ta’ Carroll u Vargas Llosa. Ħarġu l-iskieken, sinnewhom sew u d-demm iċċarċar fuq l-artal ta’ l-ugwaljanza.

Għax f’din il-gżira sinjura fekruna l-ilsna tal-bejjiegħa tal-ħolm jidilkuk bil-għasel tal-wegħda ta’ prosperita. Jgħannu l-għanja tal-ħelsien mill-jasar immaġinarju li għaġġnu f’moħħom biex bħal speċi jiġġustifikaw il-qagħda tagħom. Imma mill-kliem għall-fatti hemm baħar jaqsam. U x’baħar dak. Il-progress f’dan il-pajjiż ma jfissirx li tqiegħed lil kullħadd f’kundizzjoni li jtejjeb ruħu. Ma jfissirx meritokrazija. Il-progress għandu l-minġel f’idejħ u jekk int tajjeb iżżejjed, jekk b’ħilitek inqtajt mill-folla issibu jistennik – u b’daqqa waħda jaqtagħlek saqajk. Hekk… issa ġejt daqs ħaddieħor. U hekk kullħadd l-istess. Kullħadd kuntent. Progress achieved.

“Prosperity or egalitarianism — you have to choose. I favor freedom — you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.” – Mario Vargas Llosa

Żgur sinjura fekruna li se tħalli ‘l uliedek hawn fostna? Iva ħallejna gwardjan magħhom lejl u nhar biex żgur ix-xorti xxaqleb favurihom. Bil-bouncer 24/7 fuq ramlet artna. Imma barra minn fuqhom li jikbru u jitgħallmu u jsiru intelliġenti. Barra minn fuqhom li b’ħilithom isibu xogħol imħallas tajjeb. Għax hemm isibuħ il-progress jistenna bil-minġel ileqq f’idu. Minġel ikreh li jixxejjer bid-dagħdiha tal-għira u l-inkapaċita tal-injurant. Jekk hemm bżonn nipprostitwixxu parlament sabiex nitkażaw jekk taqlax iktar mill-President . Hemm aħna sinjura fekruna… imbasta ħadnilek ħsiebhom sakemm nibtu… imma jżabbu jmorru aħjar minna.

Wara kollox x’iriduhom dal-flejjes kollha? Bil-flus tagħmel biss toroq fil-baħar, u x’iżżobb se nagħmlu bihom dat-toroq eh?

Aqdef ja bagħla aqdef.

 

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Back in Time

It’s been a quiet week – away from the blog. Who am I kidding? A turtle flapped its way up Gnejna bay to lay its little eggs of hope only to be given the Kardashian treatment. Be a celebrity turtle for a day. As if that was not enough the J’accuse Prophesies all fell into place in one damned week. Columnists were made to regret their decision to back a lying politician to the hilt for the sake of winning an election. Remember the “objects of hate”? That was February and March 2008. J’accuse was asking the obvious questions: Can politics by default be successful? Is there anything shallower than the politics of taste? Does backing every Johnny Come Lately for the sake of winning a few votes pay in the long run?

Well it did not. Eerily we went back to those posting days and we noticed that we touched on much more issues that would come back to haunt certain people in 2012. It’s not so uncanny when you think of it but posts such as “PfP – What’s the pFuss?” turned out to be, how shall I say… relevant. Or take the one entitled “Theatrics of the Hard of Hearing” – also a topical issue. Only a few days previously we had highlighted the birth of a new star in “In-House Bickering“. Before that we had analysed Gonzi’s first cabinet choices in “A Cabinet for the People“… that included the following interesting excerpt:

Not something JPO can hope for seeing that his constant denial of knowledge of anything to do with Mistra seems to have exploded in his face. Small aside here. JPO’s treatment by the party had its setbacks too. He was an expendable puppet in the war with Sant. In the party’s list of priorities, proving that Sant would chicken out from confrontation was more important than harnessing a potentially damaging candidate. Projecting him into the limelight to outwit Sant meant that JPO could not limit the damage and his fruitless denial only ended up in Gonzi’s ruling out a Cabinet position for the man who garnered a voting bananza simply on the “sympathy” basis. In the process PN also showed a nasty side in its use of the media and journalists to achieve its aim. Nul points and more.

Then, as now, misinformation regarding the pros and cons of a coalition was high on the agenda for some people. Of course it did not help that they confused the actions of individuals projected to the dizzying heights of one-seat majorities with those of potential political parties that are accountable to a set of commitments. In The Real King Makers we highlighted the perils of the PN’s one -seat majority.

And yes, there was Daphne. Daphne who started the campaign planted before her PC posting comment after comment on J’accuse challenging the “objects of hate” to fall in line with the simple choice of electing PN by default … because Labour is not good for the country (sound familiar?). The tactic is well documented in the post “Seven Day Bloggists” – how serious conversation degenerated into M.A.D by blog. DCG decamped to her own blog created midway through the campaign – probably when she realised that having a blog meant controlling the content (only nice things happen on your blog). That same blog, the Runs, was the one that would back the tearful Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando to the hilt. Elect anyone but Alfred Sant. So much for rational voting….

There’s more to read in those pre-electoral months on J’accuse. We’ve been reading through to see how much of today’s mess was predictable back then. Turns out that the answer is “Quite a bit”. This blog is kicking back into life after a deserved pause (because I say so).

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Dwar il-Maltin ta’ Barra

F’Awwissu tiskadili il-karta tal-identita. Kont qed intella u nniżżel għandix inġeddida.

Kulltant itik li tieqaf ftit. Hemm bżonn. Ħalli kif ngħidu aħna z-zingari “issorbixxi” aħjar dak li qed jiġri . Ovvja li jekk titkellem ma tistax tisma’, jekk tlissen ma tagħtix widen u jekk fid-daqqa u il-waqt tarma tgħajjat jiefqu jagħtu kasek. Allura tieqaf u “tipploka”. Għax hemm bżonn.

Tmien snin ilna. Aħna li tlaqna minn artna nesploraw u ninvestigaw il-ħajja lil’hinn min żokrot l-univers. Tmien snin li fihom skoprejna univers ieħor. Iġġerrejna tul il-kontinent il-qadim nitmattru fejn irridu u ngawdu il-ftuħ, il-wesgħa u d-differenza. Meta l-kontinent ma wesagħniex iktar morna niġru infittxu il-biżlejn għammiela ta’ kontinent ieħor – għatxana għall-għerf bħal kull filosfu erranti tas-seklu elfejn lebbitna ‘l hawn u ‘l hinn biex forsi narmu minn fuqna dik l-għera li konna tgħabbejna biha minn twelidna u li f’daqqa konna sirna wisq konxji taghħa.

Pijunieri konna. Kburin u imżatta. Tlaqna niġru meta qajla konna indunajna bil-ġmiel tal-mixi. Bnejna artali ġodda fl-eteru u ġibna ruħna bhal mitt papa – ilkoll nippontifikaw. Bħal Raleigh li ġie lura mill-kontinent ġdid bi pjanti ta’ tabakk u patata sirna għorrief tal-botanika. Mhux għax ma kellniex raġun. Tafu kif jgħidu l-Ingliżi… in the land of the blind, the one eyed man…. Hemm aħna – Ċiklopi -għaddejjin nippontifikaw. Sirna enċiklopediċi.

Sadattant f’żokrot l-univers rawna, iggustawna imbagħad beżqulna u beżquna. Ikkuppjawna, kasbru u kissru l-mini-artali ta’ progress li konna tant nittfanntsu bihom. Kull deni ħadnieh b’ġid. Komplejna kwieti għax konna ilna li għarafna li dak kien parti mid-destin miktub f’demm niesna. Destin li qatt ma jippermetti tkabbir magħqud imma tkissir imfarrad u maqsum. Dak ma kienx l-ikbar dispjaċir.

L-ikbar dispjaċir ħadnieh dan l-aħħar. Meta indunajna li konna ilna li xeddejna ilbies il-pijunieri, uniformet l-esploraturi, togot l-enċiklopediċi. Indunajna li konna tgħażżinna. Tlifna l-għatx għall-għerf u għal oħtu il-mistoqsija. Lanqas ma kien għad hemm lok għall-poeżija tal-elf għaliex. Ma konniex tgħaġinna fid-dinja ta’ barra fejn konna tfajna il-kappell. Le l-ebda Dukat ma qatt kien ser jissejjaħ darna. Imma konna tgħażżinna.  U għal mument tlifna kull interess f’dak li kien qed jiġri f’żokrot l-univers.

Allura tieqaf. Pawża meħtieġa sakemm tirranġa il-kumpass, taħsel l-uniformi u traqqam it-toga. Hemm bżonn. Ilna tmien snin issa li tlaqna min xtut artna. Jekk il-pass li jmiss għadu mhux ċar allura trid tieqaf u tipploka u issorbixxi.

Narawkom daqt.

Qabel Awwissu se nġedded l-ID Card. Biex tagħmel parti mill-Unjoni Ewropea trid l-ewwel tagħmel parti min pajjiż. Biex tivvjaġġa fiż-żona Schengen mingħajr passaport kull m’għandek bżonn hu ID Card (jew liċenzja tas-sewqan)… biex titlaq iddur fl-Ewropa trid tibda minn x’imkien.

U l-bidu dejjem kien ser ikun żokrot l-univers….

Din il-bloggata hija dedikata lill-Maltin ta’ barra u b’mod speċjali lil dawk li telqu minn Malta fl-ewwel nofs tas-sena 2004. Dan il-blog ser jieħu pawża qasira. Ir-ritratt huwa ritratt tal-belt ta’ Lussemburgu meħud mis-sema.

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