Thursday’s 10-hour sitting of the House of Representatives started with the intention of those who moved for the sitting to be held, to prove the Constitutional principle that an MP sitting in the House first and foremost represents his electorate, not his party.

And it then proceeded to disprove this.

Predictably, one side was as compact as the other. There were overtones and undertones too if one listened carefully, especially to those under siege from their own side, who took care to attack the other side with barbs designed to hit those at their backs. But in a debate, if we may so interpret it, on the independence and sovereignty of each MP, all MPs kept assiduously to their side, both during the debate and during the late night vote.

So far so predictable. July 2006 is no July 1998. The government’s majority is still solid based as it is on five votes, not on a maverick one.

The whole procedure, then, in the country’s highest House, is still heavily tainted. For essentially, the House was sitting in judgement on one of its own members. Forget his identity for a moment. Just as had happened in previous times when a non-member was brought before the House on a Breach of Privilege claim, what mattered was not right or wrong but majority versus minority. That case, the Charles Demicoli one, had a European Court coda after which Parliament changed its modus operandi. But on Thursday it was still majority v minority.

Was the “accused” right or wrong? After 10 solid hours of debate, that mattered the least. What mattered was majority and minority. This was, this newspaper feels, the second fundamental mistake made by those who called for the whole procedure. How could they imagine that a member who had spoken of majority v minority was to be censored by a majority vote as against a minority vote beggars belief.

Then there was the not so inconsequential matter of the case itself. The fact is, which is now clear – and we have to be political here – that the origins of the whole mess was the crucial error of Maltacom’s IPO during the Sant administration, which spoke of Maltacom owning property when it is now clear the corporation did not have title to some of them. That, to boot, was an IPO done here and in London. And it was not picked up until far more serious purchasers than the unnamed share owners in Malta and London went over the documents and the due diligence exercise was made with real diligence and the error was uncovered.

Minister Austin Gatt, however, did go somewhat overboard when he was replying to questions in Parliament, and all through Thursday you could hear his colleagues trying to gloss over these “eleven words”; in our opinion, he should have immediately come out with a statement to the effect that he respects Parliament.

But perhaps the matter would not have rested there: Labour wanted its day in the House and any opposition worth its salt relishes getting the government’s key people in a position where they are on the defensive. Still it reeked far too much of a baying crowd beneath the guillotine. Far from defending Parliament’s privileges from a person who would do away with them, what came across was the sheer personal animosity of many speakers from the Opposition benches. Is this what we can expect when (not if) Labour makes it to a majority?

Beyond all this, however, this newspaper agrees wholeheartedly with what was said, mainly by Labour MPs, on how Parliament is becoming irrelevant and how people feel they are cut off from it. It is simply not a question of broadcasting the sittings on TV (what would the screens show? The permanently empty benches?) Nor is it a question of building a new Parliament. Nor is it a question of reforming the Standing Orders.

All the people involved, from the Speaker down to MPs, do go and visit other Parliaments. How come they never seem to come back with ideas how to make Parliament relevant. Or is their travelling an excuse to go places and get some good free meals?

You do not make Parliament relevant by respecting the fiction that each member is free and sovereign, nor by insisting on 40-minute speeches (it’s just two minutes at the European Parliament and nobody seems to mind), Nor by spending 10 long hours of verbal diarrhoea on a member who was 11 words on a very thin line. Isn’t it an indictment: in a country where the government controls the media and the two political parties own television stations, isn’t it a terrible indictment of, well at least gross incompetence, if the people are at the stage where they do not give a fig about the House?