Malta graduated to the status of a fully-fledged EU member three years ago. This status entitles Malta to the official claim that it is a fully functioning democracy committed to the rule of law.

Between saying and being so, there is a great divide. Embarrassing though it may be, EU membership has not, as yet, led to an upgrading of Malta’s ersatz democracy.

Disarmed democracy

In Malta, State authority is buttressed by arrogance and the interests of the average citizen are subordinated to those of ruling politicians. The environment is such that democracy is disarmed and surreptitiously paralysed.

The Voice of the Mediterranean episode was the latest evidence to corroborate the above The evidence came to light, subsequent to the investigations of the Auditor General, indicating gross irregularities relating to the management of public expenditure. Further documentary evidence was published in the press, reinforcing the Auditor General’s findings. The accusing finger pointed to a PN stalwart.

PN ministers and parliamentarians and the party propaganda machine, were mobilised to fudge the issue. They questioned whether financial laws regulating public service expenditure applied to an entity that was co-owned by the government and Libyan interests. They questioned whether the Auditor General’s staff who were taking part in the investigations, were qualified. There was even an attempt to launch an investigation into the Auditor General’s performance, never mind the fact that this raised serious constitutional issues.

Money down the drain

There was never a moment throughout the proceedings which focused on safeguarding the interests of the Exchequer and of taxpayers, with so much money going down the drain or up in smoke.

After weeks of wrangling in Parliament, and fulminations in the press, the whole issue was left hanging in mid-air, eventually to recede from electoral memory.

If this is democracy, it is a spineless, impotent democracy, and one that does not glitter in the EU constellation.

This very recent episode was no flash-in-the-pan. Over the past several years, under different administrations, there have been umpteen cases where serious allegations of corruption or charges of abuse of patronage have been raised.

Standard operating procedure is for the Opposition to cry “foul” and for the government to run the gauntlet during a brief public outcry – after which life goes on, more often than not because a new “scandal” blows away the old.

Law without teeth

The upshot is that there are no standing arrangements to conduct independent, transparent investigations when serious complaints are made alleging corruption, abuse or incompetence – real or perceived – to pollute our democratic environment. This militates against accountability. It builds a protective wall for the guilty and the incompetent. In such cases, the law is without teeth. Democracy is debilitated and deprived of its legitimate weapons for self-defence.

Perhaps the ruins of the former Royal Opera House provide the most convincing evidence of the above. Since the wartime destruction of that imposing edifice by enemy action, there have been umpteen projects to rebuild it. International design competitions have been organised. Experts have been engaged at considerable expense, to advise the government on how to proceed. At one stage, the theatre site was incorporated in a project conceived by Renzo Piano. Later on, the government toyed with a plan to build a House of Parliament on that site.

No accountability

Heaven knows how many Ministers have held press briefings, posed for press and TV cameramen, and cut ceremonial ribbons.

The amount of public funds that has gone up in smoke throughout this long process is nobody’s business. Yet no one has been held accountable at any stage.

We have only the opera house ruins to shame the culprits.

All of this stems from a culture that has deep roots and produced a warped political system that, in part, rests on dependence on votes for elections, which could mean favours or abuses, and, in part, is driven by arrogance.

Unpalatable truth

The unpalatable truth is that three years after joining the European Union, we still lack important structures that are part and parcel of democracy. We have democracy on paper, because we have parliamentary elections, and the people elect our government. From then on, in many respects, governance is the prerogative of the Executive, with ministers performing according to their whims, without accountability.

Only last week, an Opposition MP lamented in Parliament that “it is unacceptable in a democratic society that Malta’s security services only need the warrant of a minister to investigate any citizen without his knowledge”. The same MP held that such investigations should only be carried out after authorisation by the criminal court or a member of the judiciary.

Some days earlier, the Malta Chamber of Advocates went public to denounce the Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, who, instead of putting the world to rights, as was his sworn duty, thought it fit, without being specific, to deplore the behaviour of a few avaricious lawyers in the Family Court.

Democracy – an abstract notion

The Chamber of Advocates, quite rightly, resented the generic accusation and pointed out that if the Parliamentary Secretary was sure of his facts, it was his duty to take the necessary action.

In both these instances, no one in government batted an eyelid. So long as ministers could ride roughshod over people’s rights and democratic sensitivities, they do not have to argue. They perform according to their whims because, to them, accountability seems to have no meaning.

In the prevailing circumstances, power is concentrated in the hands of the elected Executive.

As far as the common citizen is concerned, real democracy is an abstract notion.

What we have is a dictatorship of the majority.

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Unimpeachable evidence

We have the unimpeachable evidence of a PN stalwart and former President of the Republic, Dr Censu Tabone, who had time to pause and collect his thoughts when he retired from active politics.

His unadulterated conclusions in the Malta context, highlighted in Professor Henry Frendo’s biographical work (Censu Tabone –The Man and his Century) are eloquent enough.

“Political parties are essential to the workings of democracy, but these lack democracy within themselves, enthroning the leader almost as a god… Unlike other European countries, in Malta, even if some groups may share friendships, ideas or interests, there are no open factions, and any criticism of the leader would risk branding the critical or dissenting thinker as a traitor (sic). The hegemony and longevity in leadership, epitomised in the past by the ‘reigns” of Gonzi, Borg Oliver and Mintoff, is seen as a decidedly negative factor, working in favour of the power-wielding caucus of ‘inner sanctum’ secretaries, advisers, businessmen, politicians and other confidantes – il-klikka tal-poter – to the exclusion of all others in the wings.

“A static sameness in authority aids and abets time-serving, parasitic elements (who) appropriate power, even if they represent no electorate; it emarginates talent and potential, while simultaneously reducing vigour and enthusiasm.”

Dictatorship of the majority

Dr Tabone held the view that “the system we have might as well be called ‘a dictatorship of the majority’, rather than one in which citizens’ views are really executed”. True democratic participation ought to imply that governments represent opinions in proportion of their strength.

Dr Tabone’s considered assessment, which first appeared in print six years ago, is a telling, authoritative commentary on the way the machinery of democracy operates in these islands.

There is one slim, silver lining that has since brightened Malta’s democratic sky.

Civil society, and in particular non-government organisations, have been showing an awareness of their democratic rights. Their advocacy has been militant. They are beginning to raise their voices in the streets and public squares.

They are bound to make their unmistakable presence felt in the ballot box and usher in a new dawn.

jgv@onvol,net