The PN's environment private member’s bill | Lino C. Farrugia

Lino C. Farrugia is FKNK CEO

Nationalist MP Darren Carabott, who is reportedly aspiring to become his party’s deputy leader, last month led the discussion on a private member’s bill in parliament. The bill sought to amend the Constitution by introducing and recognising the right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right.

While the bill seemed well-intentioned at face value, I believe that its hidden agenda was dangerous and draconian, and had no place in a civil democracy. I am therefore relieved that it was stopped in its tracks. It could only have been welcomed by extremist groups and individuals who seek to achieve their aims through means other than those available legally and democratically.

I also believe that the personal agendas of most of these groups and individuals are a result of envy—others enjoy a hobby or passion which they pursue with great enthusiasm, while they have nothing of the sort, and so resort to attacks, sometimes personal and always vicious.

The fanatical groups and individuals who would definitely have welcomed the bill's enactment are mostly the same people who formed 26 protectionist groups under different names, as well as others, who forced the 2015 abrogative referendum, which sought to abolish the traditional spring hunting season. This exercise cost Maltese taxpayers over €6 million and yet they lost to the Federation for Hunting and Conservation (FKNK). On 12 April 2015, upon the announcement of the FKNK referendum victory, I publicly stated as an FKNK official: “No one, not even our worst enemies, should endure the suffering that hunters have experienced during this referendum campaign.  Similarly, no one should have the power to inflict such suffering on any individual or group in our democratic society.”

The proposed bill defined 'environment' very broadly, including air, water, land, ecosystems, biodiversity and natural resources, as well as social and cultural conditions. It also enabled any person in Malta, regardless of personal interest, to take legal action against anything that falls within this broad definition.

Was this bill a gift from the PN to extremist groups and individuals, who could use it much more easily and cheaply instead of a referendum?

Isn’t it also shameful for the PN to believe that parliament should amend the Constitution on the basis of a private member’s bill? Parliament did not even amend the Constitution when the FKNK filed the largest petition ever tabled in the House (104,293 physically collected signatures), requesting updated, adequate and just amendments to the Referendum Act.

Besides the use by infamous extremist groups and individuals, if enacted, the bill would most definitely have been used by PN MP Albert Buttigieg, who hates hunters and has recently called them “barbarians”.

Judge Emeritus Giovanni Bonello, who had looked forward to getting rid of hunters through the abrogative referendum result of 2015, may also have had a renewed interest in doing so through the use of the proposed constitutional provision. Back then, he had mocked hunters by referring to them as Neanderthals, overlooking the fact that Neanderthals were the most advanced humans of their era. Another prominent person who voted for the abolition of traditional spring hunting at the referendum, Monsignor Charles Jude Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta, may also have had a new interest in using the proposed constitutional amendment.

I maintain that this was a dangerous bill since it could have led to a dictatorship-like situation for fanatical groups and individuals. Hopefully, the government’s wisdom to stand in the way will continue to prevail in any similar future attempts.