Government backbencher Deborah Schembri hit back against critics on Monday, telling Parliament that MPs elected through the gender corrective mechanism are not second-class MPs or inferior to other parliamentarians.

Schembri - who was one of the six Labour MPs to get elected through this means this legislature - dedicated part of her first speech back in Parliament to defending the gender corrective mechanism and the female MPs who made their way to the House of Representatives through this channel.

In her first parliamentary speech in nine years, Schembri denied the rhetoric that Members of Parliament elected through the gender quota are being gifted an undeserving opportunity.

"Some see this mechanism and reason that women are being gifted a chance to be elected to Parliament when they don't deserve it. This is incorrect and unjust," Schembri said.

The former Parliamentary Secretary said that it is also "unjust" to think or imply that women elected to Parliament through the gender quota are inferior to their colleagues elected to serve within the same institution.

Schembri noted that some of the women elected to Parliament through the gender quota this recent electoral process attained more votes than some MPs who are now serving in the country's highest institution by winning casual elections for vacated duplicate seats.

"If you think that you can be elected to Parliament with 100 votes, that is not true," Schembri stated.

She also hit back against former MEP Marlene Mizzi's suggestion that MPs elected via the gender quota once should be barred from getting elected through the same means in the future. Following this year's general election, three MPs were re-elected, for a second time, through the gender corrective mechanism; these were PL MP Cressida Galea and Opposition MPs Bernice Bonello and Julie Zahra.

Mizzi had argued that candidates who had already benefitted from the mechanism during the previous legislature should not be eligible to receive a seat through the same process a second time, remarking that this is unfair to both voters and other female candidates. She observed that MPs who entered Parliament through this mechanism had four years to prove themselves as representatives to get themselves re-elected on their own steam.

Schembri stated on Monday that she "fully disagrees" with Mizzi's remarks and expressed her disappointment on hearing the former MEP's suggestion.

Schembri told the House that this mechanism exists because, a few years ago, the Parliament of Malta decided that it needed to introduce it to boost gender parity among the country's elected officials. She said that "this mechanism is there to treat gender equality as something important in this country and, because of this, it is being reflected in our voting system."

She reminded viewers that this mechanism is part of the "democratic" voting system and it must be respected, as should its beneficiaries.

"If you bar them from being elected this way, you will be depriving that person from a democratic process, as well as the country from being represented democratically," Schembri said.

Opposition MP says Parliament should be full-time with better pay to attract more candidates

Nationalist Party MP Mark Anthony Sammut continued on Schembri's points though said that looking only at the gender corrective mechanism would be ignoring the root cause behind why not enough women, and candidates overall, are participating in politics as candidates.

Sammut observed that after factoring the gender corrective mechanism's 12 additional seats to Parliament's composition, women still do not make up the targeted 40% of represented officials.

In his view, "if we look at mechanism alone, we will look only at the symptom and will not see the core reason behind why women do not contest politics."

"The question is not why not many women are being elected to Parliament, but rather why not many women are contesting politics," Sammut said.

The Opposition MP believes that the answer to this question is clear, and so is the solution.

Sammut called for being a parliamentarian to become a full-time job, rather than a part-time position for non-Cabinet members, and for MPs to be given better support to fulfil their parliamentary duties as best as they can.

"This is why it has less candidates, overall, are contesting," he said, "It has become very difficult to enter politics, knowing that you are being paid miserably, sticking your neck out to political scrutiny, without having the necessary backing."

Sammut added that it's "farcical" that government ministers earn half or a third of the wages of the CEOs they appoint to lead the country's government bodies. "Then we're surprised that we hear stories" related to corruption and personal financial gain, he said.

The Opposition MP proposed that ministerial wages should be made higher and that these wage increases should be followed by stronger policies regarding financial transparency and good governance, such as a more transparent asset declaration system.

Sammut said that the PN has pitched several proposals to bolster good governance in Malta's democratic systems.

He followed this by questioning the capabilities of Prime Minister Abela's caretaker government over the month of May, during the election campaign, and questioned whether all the signed collective agreements and a signed direct order worth €120 million, in reference to Mater Dei Hospital's expansion project, and other instances over last month are conducive to Malta having a stronger democracy.

Sammut concluded that he hopes for better political integrity over this legislature, "so that politics wins back the people's trust outside."