I got to know Josette Dalli back in that terrible month of July 1990, when news came of the accident involving her nephew, Matthew Micallef St John.

In those terrible days, hope alternated with despair until nothing more could be done. At the time, and for months after that, Josette was a huge help to her sister and to all the family.

Their family, the Callus family, was and still is highly respected in Gzira. Their father, Paul, was a devoted father, a pillar of the parish, a silent and attentive presence without airs or pretensions.

The two daughters, apart from being there for each other, were likewise humble and unpretentious, even though Josette was the wife of first a parliamentary secretary and later a minister in the Fenech Adami government.

I remember many years later, as we waited at Castille for a state occasion (it could have been the visit by the King of Spain or the UN Secretary-General) when she spoke to my wife and me for quite a long time, sharing the feeling that we were not cut out for state occasions and telling us that she rather preferred staying at home with her family.

The last time I saw her was in a forlorn group at Brussels Airport some years ago.

I have written on another occasion of the time I found myself inadvertently present at a Commission-organised seminar in Brussels at which John Dalli was to be a speaker and how Mr Dalli, with Commission President Barroso present, came in very late and Mr Barroso’s eyes bore into his back as he walked to his seat.

No one knew then what was going on. But on the plane coming back we learnt that John Dalli had been forcibly removed from the Commission.

A few days later, together with a group of journalists, I was back in Brussels, probably for a Council meeting. At the airport, waiting to board the plane back to Malta, was Josette with her children. One of us was making some uncharitable remarks about John Dalli in a very loud voice, unaware (so he said later) of Josette’s presence.

She turned but made just a whimper of protest. The small, huddled group remained all alone.

I do not know what happened later and much of what happened before. I prefer to remember her as the Mother of Sorrows.

Rest in peace, Josette.

 

A ritual call

Every so often, someone remembers the 1964 Constitution and, for a time, the government and the Opposition spar about reforming and updating it.

Since independence, the Constitution has been amended in a somewhat piecemeal fashion: to change Malta to a republic in 1974 and to introduce majority rule in 1987. There have been other, relatively minor, changes since then.

I still do not discern any real will to propose a thorough reform of the Constitution, so all the sounds we hear when reforming the Constitution is mentioned is just hot air from people who have nothing better to talk about.

There is one simple reason for me to say this. Not one of the aforementioned Constitutional amendments was done with in-depth preparatory work. On the contrary, the two major changes were brutally introduced by a government majority and caused long-lasting internal damage to the parties involved with next to no attempt to propose any wider change to the Constitution, even when this was clearly desirable.

In previous years, some serious thought has been given to what changes should be made to the Constitution, but nothing that has resembled an orderly presentation. What possibly drew near this was a seminar, called ‘The President’s Forum’ organised by President George Abela in April 2012 and, a year later, published in book form. Not all the contributions are of sufficient quality, and maybe there are other experts who could have been invited to contribute, but I point out two – by professors Ian Refalo and Kevin Aquilina – apart from the contribution by Judge Giovanni Bonello referred to in a previous article, whose contributions could form the basis of a serious attempt to reform the Constitution.

However, the fact that in the latest public statements on the subject no reference has been made to such studies leads me to believe that there is at present no serious intention to reform the Constitution, particularly when one side – the government’s – makes unacceptable demands on the other as a preliminary condition.

It seems to me that we are doomed to live with this flawed Constitution for many more years before we all see sense.

 

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