Shooting the Second Republic in the foot

During his first two weeks in government, Joseph Muscat has sent a number of positive signs.

On an ideological level he has sent a clear sign of secularisation by making it clear that the new government will renegotiate the church-state agreement to restore the primacy of the civil courts over ecclesiastical courts in annulments.

Moreover, the fears of a vindictive Labour government evoked by a lame attempt by the PN media shenanigans to instil fear of a return to the 80s have been exorcised once and for all. We can simply move on.

Where the new government has brought little change is the way appointments are done. The only positive exception so far was the appointment of Giovanni Bonello, former judge of the European Court of Human Rights, to head a commission to recommend the reform of the justice system.

By appointing their own in key posts, Labour is following the script of post-1987 Nationalist governments, but the Malta Taghna Lkoll mantra and emphasis on meritocracy did instil a degree of hope that things will start to change.

James Piscopo's appointment in Transport Malta was perfectly legal but the sudden shift from occupying the post CEO of the Labour Party to that of CEO of a public authority jars with idea of keeping state and party as distinct as possible. 

Still, I am not sure whether Piscopo's appointment is any worse than the appointment of PN-leaning businessmen as chairpersons of various public authorities over the past decades, a policy which created a widespread perception of conflict of interests, confirmed in the oil procurement scandal.

In fact the appointment of Labour-leaning (now former) businessmen in sensitive posts like that of Keith Schembri as the PM's new chief of staff, and Nexos's Silvio Scerri as chief of staff for the home affairs minister Manuel Mallia, should be of more concern than that of Piscopo's appointment.

But the most controversial appointment made in the past days was that of Franco Debono as the person responsible for coordinating the new constitutional convention.

I find nothing improper in Franco Debono's appointment as Law Commissioner, responsible for fine-tuning legislation.

This would have passed as yet another direct appointment by government aimed at co-opting former PN dissidents. Debono's appointment follows Muscat's reconfirmation of fellow backbencher Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando as chairman of the Malta Council for Science and Technology, a decision announced a few days before the election.

Neither can one question Franco Debono's merits in fulfilling his duties as law commissioner, for he already enjoyed the trust of Lawrence Gonzi to chair the committee for the codification of laws. 

The problem is the added responsibility given to Debono as the coordinator of the Constitutional Convention, which would be rewriting the fundamental rules governing our democracy.

By its own very nature this Convention, which will be proposing constitutional reforms requiring a two-thirds majority in parliament, needs to be consensual.  Like him or not, Franco Debono is not a consensus figure. Debono is in the same shoes Mintoff was in 1998. This should not exclude him from any appointment, but it does exclude him from appointments which by their very nature should be consensual.

It seems that Muscat has preferred to shoot the Convention in the foot, to score some more political points against the PN, which simply does not look good objecting to Debono.

But it was all so predictable that the PN would take such an appointment as an affront.

If Muscat had the interest of constitutional reform at heart he would have consulted with the PN and AD to appoint someone who enjoys the trust of all parties represented in the electoral process, including the 5,506 voters who voted for the greens.

For the Constitution belongs to us all.

My worse fear is that talks on important reforms like that of our electoral system will end up stalled simply because of a capricious decision to appoint a broker who is simply not trusted by all sides.

It brings me a déjà vu of Labour's abandonment of the select committee chaired by the speaker to discuss similar reforms in Maltese democracy, after the PN failed to apologize to Justyne Caruana...Is history repeating itself once again?