With the Labour Party now on the cusp of publishing its full electoral programme, it can be safely assumed that the real battle of the policies between the Nationalist and Labour parties’ election pledges will well and truly begin next week.

All the cards will be placed on the table once and for all.  There will be no more bickering about who has and who has not revealed their full list of offerings to the electorate.  And with the Labour Party saying it will publish the full costings of its proposals, the electorate will at long last start to get a full picture of exactly what choices lie before them.

But before the nitty-gritty of the parties’ proposals is placed under the electoral under the microscope, there has been one particular proposal from the Labour Party that has not been given the amount of attention that it is due.  And when it has been given attention, a lot of that attention has been of the wrong sort altogether.

Since the beginning of the official election campaign at the beginning of last month, there has been a virtual flood of electoral pledges, and sometimes the better ideas, those that hold the possibility of fundamentally changing the way things operate in this country, can tend to be lost in the shuffle.

And one such example is the Labour Party’s ‘open governance’ pledge floated last week.  In a nutshell, the party has proposed a pilot project through which the public will nominate and vote for one representative on the boards of government corporations and regulatory authorities.  That will be coupled, according to Labour’s plan, with a bid to make upcoming legislation and government policies publicly-available

For starters, publicly-elected state board members would not mean nominating or voting for just anyone to be the public’s representative on government boards. While the party has said that the parameters for nominations would be wide, to be eligible those nominated would need to have a proven track record in the area in question.

The party is also proposing the online publication of all draft legislation for public consultation, the full use of information technology and social networking to encourage and receive as many policy suggestions as possible, and that such suggestions would be taken on board before parliamentary debates.  Documents exceedingly technical in nature and those written in pure legalese will be summarised and abridged for easier public consumption.

As matters currently stand, and quite irrespective of who is in government or opposition, so many government proposals are disputed by an opposition merely for the sake of it – a situation in which the desire for political mileage many times trumps the best interest of the people.  This second leg of Labour’s open governance proposal takes aim at such situations.

Another part of this open governance concept was the recent Labour pledge to publish MPs’ attendance records online, making those select few more accountable to their constituents - those who elected them in the first place.

After all, open governance is not just about giving the people a token input in the decision-making processes of the country, it also gives citizens have the right to access government documents and proceedings, such as through the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, to allow for effective public oversight of the running of the government.

‘We want an accountable, transparent government, and we are not afraid of letting go of some power to open government up beyond politicians,’ Labour leader Joseph Muscat said last week – a notion few, irrespective of their political stripe, could possibly disagree with.

And while on the surface such concepts may seem a little simplistic to some, it must be pointed out that there is a whole lot more to it than that - just as the great tablet giveaway is less about mere electronic freebies and a lot more about reinventing the way our children are taught and how they learn.

Open governance is about making the people part of the decision-making process more often than once every five years when election time rolls around.  It is about involving the public in the running of the country; it is about creating the types of active citizens that will take this country upward and onward in the decades to come.  It is about active citizenship, and opening up government structures to the public.

Open governance means making sure that the public has access to government information so that they can engage more effectively with their government.  At the same time, it also means that governments have the ability to respond more effectively to citizens and work collaboratively to solve difficult governance issues.

Openness makes a government more transparent and accountable to its citizens and as such it enhances the legitimacy of those in power, in the process creating more faith in those who run the country.

Open governance is the platform between government and its citizens. It can have crucial roles in, for example, ensuring budget allocations or the use and provision of social services go to areas where the people feel they are most needed. 

It puts governments in greater contact with the people and at the same time it gives people more and better access to their government.  It provides a mechanism through which better and more accurately-developed services can be demanded, a mechanism through which a government also greatly increases its capacity to respond quickly to public concerns and demands.

The practice is about governments engaging better with citizens, as well as with organisations from the private and civil society sectors, and it helps ensure that that policies implemented by a government are in tune with citizens’ needs.

Whatever side of the political fence one may stand, one would be hard pressed to imagine anyone disagreeing with such concepts.  This is a small country and being small can allow you to do some great things, as long as one has the right vision.

Let us hope that if implemented, this concept of open governance will be taken to its full fruition here in Malta.