People should decide, not politicians

The Prime Minister’s decision to launch himself into the spring hunting referendum fray tells us a lot about how politicians view such issues.

At a rally in Gozo at the weekend, Joseph Muscat muscled his way into the referendum campaign with arguments in support of the ‘yes’ camp. His arguments were that a ban on spring hunting would somehow make Maltese citizens inferior to (‘less than’) their European counterparts; and that people should support spring hunting as a mark of ‘respect’ and ‘tolerance’ for others.

Much more pertinently, Muscat shifted the entire landscape of what has been, to date, a non-political campaign onto the more familiar territory of partisan allegiance. He declared that Opposition leader Simon Busutill is ‘against spring hunting’, and implied that the Nationalist Party is actively working to ensure that the ‘No’ campaign wins.

In so doing, Muscat has consciously struck a note of partisan politics in what should be a non-partisan debate. His comment subliminally invites people to treat this referendum, not as a tool with which to take a decision, but rather as an extension of the Nationalist/Labour divide.

This intervention is both flawed and irresponsible on several counts.

On a factual level, Muscat is incorrect. Once again, he echoes the ‘Yes’ campaign’s argument that spring hunting is in fact an accepted reality in several parts of the European Union. This is not the case at all. There are countries which apply all sorts of derogations affecting hunting; but in all such cases there are justifications that go beyond the issue of hunting.

Examples include permitting certain species to be shot for population control, out of concerns for aviation security, or (most commonly) because the species concerned are recognised as pests, and therefore detrimental to the environment if left uncontrolled.

No such consideration applies to Malta’s use of the derogation mechanism. On the contrary, the declared justification for this derogation has always been to uphold the practice of spring hunting for its own sake. No external justification is provided: Malta is the only country to permit hunting in spring for no other reason than because a group of people wants to hunt in spring. This makes our situation quite unlike any other in Europe.

The same justification has given rise to the fallacy, implicit in the prime minister’s declarations, that hunting in spring constitutes some form of ‘right’ which qualifies for protection at law. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no such thing as a ‘right’ to hunt in spring. The very notion is absurd. On the contrary, all European countries recognise that killing birds during the breeding season is unsustainable and unsound from a conservation perspective. The fact that Malta has always permitted this activity is nothing more than the result of the peculiar historical context in which hunting has evolved.

Until 1981 there were no such things as ‘hunting seasons’ at all. Limited controls were introduced that year – met with much resistance at the time – but it was only in the 1990s, as Malta geared up for EU accession, that the issue acquired the political undertones that would ultimately distort it beyond recognition. Political parties found themselves caught up in a situation in which the hunting lobby had to be appeased at all costs to ensure electoral victory. It is this dynamic, and not any ‘right’ or principle, that resulted in a situation in which both parties committed themselves to a policy of allowing hunting in spring.

Far from a right, this makes the practice an ill-gotten privilege which exists nowhere else in Europe.

From this perspective, Muscat’s argument turns the entire issue on its head. If Malta is any ‘more’ than Europe, it surpasses other countries only in permitting something which, on principle, should not be permitted at all. That makes us ‘less’ than Europe, not ‘more’.

We would improve our standing with Europe if we went beyond the levels of protection afforded to birds by European law. As things stand, we are the country offering the least legal protection to two species that are already in decline all over Europe. And it is precisely because of the two parties’ failure to ever regulate the issue properly, that the people are now being called to decide for themselves in a referendum.

Joseph Muscat’s declarations on Sunday therefore run counter to the entire spirit of this democratic exercise. By inviting people to vote on the basis of partisanship – ‘because Simon Busuttil is campaigning against’ (which incidentally doesn’t even seem to be the case) – he is actually trying to wrest that decision from the people, and reclaim it as a decision taken under the influence of political parties, to serve purely partisan ends.

This is a betrayal of the democratic principle enshrined in this referendum. The people are being given this opportunity precisely because they were let down by political parties which have always been reluctant to do the right thing.

Having failed to live up to his own political obligations in this regard, the least the prime minister could do is bow his head to the democratic process, and allow the people to take the decision for themselves without undue interference.