It is now verging on the farcical. In less than 48 hours since its fresh publication, the government has confirmed that it is obliged to change the revised legal notice once again – and for the fourth time. It has been forced to admit this because of inconsistencies discovered between the English and the Maltese versions of the act regulating the notorious Individual Investor Programme, commonly known as “the citizenship scheme”. This shortcoming was exposed not by the government but, once again, by Opposition spokesman Jason Azzopardi with his eye for detail. While in its English version, the law stipulates that applicants have to retain the Maltese residence they are required to buy for a minimum of five years, the Maltese version of the law specifies only three years.

From an Indecent Proposal to a Comedy of Errors

Had this been a one-off, genuine mistake, there would have been nothing to write home about, but a series of rushed decisions have been symptomatic of the scheme and have tarnished this piece of legislation, and ultimately the scheme itself, since its inception.

Suffice it to say that the government announced changes to the first official version of the legal notice within a couple of days of its publication. At that stage, the proposed amendments were not simply intended to modify trivial mistakes but rather were amendments of substance, mainly to remove the dangerous and widely unacceptable secrecy clause that the government had pushed through in spite of across-the-board criticism.

The irony of it all is that this and the other amendments that followed were the same amendments that the Opposition has been insisting on since the very beginning of the discussion: the same amendments that the Nationalist Opposition had proposed during the parliamentary debate on the first version of the Act.

Before then, the Prime Minister and his top ministers were determined to ignore and steam-roll over the Nationalist Opposition, whose sole intent, from the very beginning, was to reach consensus on a scheme that would uphold the dignity of a self-respecting nation. Of course, we all now know that the Prime Minister was forced to swallow his pride and follow in the footsteps of his Finance Minister – who was the first person to admit that version 1 of the citizenship scheme had been hastily pushed through without the necessary discussion and consideration.

The Individual Investor Programme, which permits foreigners to acquire Maltese and European citizenship, has developed from Labour’s most indecent proposal to its own comedy of errors, with a series of foolish mistakes emanating from persistent stubbornness, hasty decisions, a sheer lack of planning and crass incompetence. Muscat and his lot are entirely to blame for this, as he was the one to stage the plot and his senior ministers the ones to take the stage. In so doing they have not only managed to ridicule themselves but also to dent Malta’s reputation as a result of all the bad press Malta has received on the international scene.

Citizenship scheme version 3: the devil is in the detail

The Prime Minister bowed to EU pressure and conceded the same points of principle that had been raised by the Opposition from the outset of the debate on the citizenship scheme. What he and his ministers had so vehemently refuted for several months they had to concede to the European Union in less than an hour, in what they called “negotiations”. This time around, the government had little choice than to unwillingly take heed of the Opposition’s objections and bow to the European Commission’s demands or be faced with legal action.

The secrecy clause providing for the anonymity of foreign applicants has been dropped, some form of investment is now included and residency has been made a requirement, even after a senior minister had pledged to resign if a single day of residency was added to the scheme. There is no arguing that the scheme could have been much better than that, but nonetheless it is important to note that this minimum sense of decency has been obtained thanks to the relentless struggle carried out in the national interest by a party in opposition.

But, as Simon Busuttil aptly put it, the devil is in the detail. So while the PN has won the argument in principle, it remains concerned about the implementation of the scheme. Version 3 of the legal notice presented by the government does not fully reflect the agreement reached with the European Commission, and to this end the Opposition is set to propose a number of amendments. It is after clearer proof of the “12 month effective” residency by the applicants, which seems to be applicable only for the main applicant and not for his family.

Amendments are also required to make it clear that, should an applicant fail to prove that he has resided in Malta for the stipulated period, his citizenship will be revoked. The Opposition is also calling for the names of those granted a passport under the scheme to be published separately and not included with the names of all other individuals. The Nationalist Party is also concerned with the fact that Henley and Partners, which is set to pocket more than €200 million from the administration of the scheme, has a clear conflict of interest when it is entrusted with selling the scheme and at the same time gets to decide who is granted citizenship and who is not.

Legal jargon and political rubbish

Following Simon Busuttil’s announcement of the Opposition’s proposed amendments to version 3 of the citizenship act, in an attempt to make it more accurately reflect the agreement reached with the European Commission, the government came out to say that there was no legal way for the legal notice to be amended and that it could only be revoked. This, of course, had to be done through a motion moved by the Opposition, as the government would have had no intention of revoking its own motion. Labour’s spin doctors swiftly followed this statement by encouraging friendly elements of the press to chase the legal experts with whom we are now becoming more familiar, to confirm that it is crystal clear that the Citizenship Act cannot be legally amended.

Admittedly there have been a few occasions where some of us have had to endure such puerile bickering and playing around with legal procedures, but sometimes it just becomes too much to stomach even for the most patient. Some lawyers turned politicians should realise that there are, in fact, some distinctions between the different chambers. The political arena is not the magistrate’s chamber. Politics is the art of making possible. It is the place where substance is supposed to take precedence over form. Legislators are there to enact laws that serve the people well and not the other way around, otherwise legal jargon and procedure will just serve to justify political rubbish.

Legalisms aside, the argument being made by the Opposition is also ‘crystal clear, which is that albeit there has now been three versions of the legal notice, there is still much room for improvement. It is also crystal clear that if there is the political will, the legal solutions will follow – and this irrespective of the jargon used and the procedure applied, whether it is a simple legal amendment or an outright revocation and rewriting of the law. Either way is, in substance, amending the effects of the law. This is true when making amends for discrepancies between the Maltese and English language versions but even more so when it comes to other matters of substance raised by the Opposition.

In plain and simple language, mistakes of any kind have to be corrected and the clauses of the Act have to truly reflect what was agreed with the European Commission. If the government is applying one legal mechanism to compensate for its ‘translation’ blunder, why should it not use other ways of making amends for more serious matters? It is to be hoped that – despite its blunders in the not so distant past – the government will not continue to ignore genuine advice. The “government that listens” concept should not be just another political slogan, suitable only for propaganda purposes. A government that more often than not boasts about its positive attitude to things should have more readily adopted the “yes we can” approach.

Clyde Puli is the Shadow Minister for Family and Social Solidarity