Isn’t it ironic?

The Nationalist Party leadership race is officially on. After six weeks of due diligence on the only two candidates who expressed an interest, Adrian Delia and Alex Borg can now formally submit their nomination. 

The election among all card-carrying members of the party will take place on 6 September, giving the PN chance to have its new leader installed in time for the Independence Day celebrations. 

Unless the restrictive media rules introduced by the PN’s electoral commission are changed, Delia and Borg will be unable to debate each other and appear on other media outlets for interviews. 

There is more than a hint of irony in the party’s media antics. While we do not get the chance to see the two candidates debate each other and exchange ideas in a civil confrontation, we are allowed the luxury of seeing their spouses sitting next to each other, answering questions from a journalist. Interesting and articulated as the spouses are, it is Adrian and Alex that matter in this race and yet, the party does not trust them to debate each other. It’s a pity. 

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The government went ahead and tabled in parliament amendments that would overhaul the planning process as we know it. It did so on a Friday afternoon, a fortnight before parliament shut for the summer break. There was no prior consultation on these very sensitive amendments. 

The tactic is an age-old political trick—publish controversial things in the midst of the summer lull when people are not bothered. Had this not been the intention, we would have seen billboards and TV adverts pushing forward the government’s message on planning reform. Government exponents can go blue in the face saying the intention was always to hold a public consultation exercise—we do not believe them. Public consultation was an afterthought; a response to the strong backlash. 

The public consultation is now open until 15 September and an inter-ministerial committee is supposed to be gathering face-to-face feedback from NGOs. We’ll wait and see whether this is simply a box-ticking exercise or a meaningful consultation that addresses the concerns raised. 

But the irony is that on another controversial issue—the regulation of Airbnb accommodation and short-let apartments—the Tourism Ministry under Ian Borg is correctly holding a consultation exercise with stakeholders before even drafting and releasing its proposals publicly. It’s as if two branches of government are functioning in diametrically opposed ways on the process of how to deal with sensitive legal and policy amendments. The mind boggles. 

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The court last week imposed a complete ban on the publication of a 17-year-old teenager charged with involuntary homicide following a drink-driving incident. The youngster was drunk and at the helm of a Maserati when he lost control and smashed into food courier Khim Bahadur Pun who was on his motorcycle. Khim was killed on the spot. What made the incident worse was that the teenager and a passenger riding with him simply walked away from the scene without even bothering to call the emergency number. The pair also abandoned another passenger who was with them in the car and who was seriously injured. 

The court withheld all personal details about the youngster on the premise that he is underage—18 being considered the age of majority. The decision is incomprehensible because there have been instances when details of people under the age of 18 have been released when arraigned in court. 

But the irony of the situation is that while this country allows 16-year-olds to vote and be elected as mayors—even making a special provision in the law to allow a 16-year-old mayor to sign on official documents which would normally require the person to be 18—for criminal purposes, people aged 16 and 17 are considered minors. 

This does not make sense. While varying age limits can be used to introduce restrictions on certain behaviours or controls that are required for social and economic engineering, it is increasingly making no sense to consider someone between 16 and 18 a minor for criminal purposes. 

And what if a 16-year-old mayor embezzles funds from the council; will the name be withheld because they are considered a minor? 

The law must provide clarity on this matter, especially when the incident at stake involves the death of a person.