Parliament will resume after the summer holidays this evening with a discussion on the Malta Freeport Act.
But tonight’s session will not only mean a return to the winter routine. It will also be a significant sitting because Labour MP Joseph Cuschieri will be making his final speech before he resigns to make way for the co-option of party leader Joseph Muscat in the House of Representatives.
Dr Muscat, who was elected party leader on 5 June, will be sworn in as an MP and Opposition Leader on Wednesday. He resigned from the European Parliament last Thursday.
The House will resume its business still under a “temporary” structure, as the government and the opposition still have not reached a permanent solution with regard to a pairing agreement and the post of Speaker.
And it seems it will take a while before this agreement comes to be.
After Dr Muscat’s election as MLP leader and before the House adjourned for summer, the two sides had come to terms to appoint a select committee to discuss several issues that concern the way Parliament operates before going on to discuss the post of Speaker and the pairing agreement.
The committee is discussing, among other things, the strengthening of Parliament’s role, the Permanent Commission against Corruption and the Office of the Ombudsman, as well as possible legislation on the financing of political parties, improvements to the electoral system, legislation limiting possible conflicts of interest of MPs, ministers and parliamentary secretaries and broadcasting.
Some of the items being discussed were proposed by the government and some others were put forward by the opposition.
It is a wide agenda that is on the table, and this committee is supposed to present a report to Parliament by the end of October. With the budget for 2009 coming up quickly on Parliament’s schedule and with MPs busy preparing for their replies and counter-replies for what is the most important period in parliamentary life, it is hard to imagine that the deadline will be met – although it is hoped that it is.
It would have been better for more meetings to have been held during the summer months – The Malta Independent is informed that only three were held since the committee was set up in July – rather than leave the bulk of the work for the time when Parliament is in session and MPs are busy with other matters. Politicians, like the rest of us, deserve to a rest during the hot summer months, but holding, on average, one meeting a month does not indicate so much eagerness from the two sides to come to terms.
It is only after this select committee concludes its work that the opposition is prepared to discuss other matters related to Parliament.
The government, which enjoys a one-seat majority in the House, had offered the opposition the chance to appoint a Speaker from among its MPs in exchange of a pairing agreement, which would allow the government more leeway for its international commitments. It had also offered a prime minister’s question time every two weeks and the holding of parliamentary sessions on Tuesday mornings and evenings and Wednesday mornings.
All this has now been put on the back-burner while the two sides discuss the issues mentioned earlier. In the meantime, former Nationalist minister Louis Galea was nominated Speaker on a temporary basis, although the way things are going it looks likely that his appointment will be of a more permanent nature.
It is hoped that parliamentary sessions are utilised to the maximum, and that no time is wasted on trivialities that sometimes disrupt the flow.