The Partit Demokratiku is against the revision of pensions for MPs, and lambasted the Nationalist Party for not having the decency to inform it that a law to this effect was going to be rushed through.

Contacted by The Malta Independent, PD MP Godfrey Farrugia said that he is very disappointed with the way the two major political parties agreed to rush through Parliament a law which caters solely for the members of the House.

As part of the Opposition, the PD should have been informed by the PN that such a law was to be submitted in Parliament, Farrugia said.

The revision to the law, presented this week, will give MPs a full two-thirds pension after only one term in the House, as against the two-term timeframe that has been in existence until now.

Farrugia said that the PD is against such a move because it goes against the principle of equality.

When the bill will be presented for its third reading, the PD will be asking for a division to register its vote against the new measures, Farrugia said.

In reaction, Nationalist Party whip Robert Cutajar said that the bill was presented to Parliament for the first time in July 2017. 

The debate in the House on the law was part of the agenda for the day, he added, and the PD could have easily asked to participate in it. The House's business cannot stop just because PD members are not in the hall. 

Cutajar said that the PN has always been accommodating to the PD each time it wanted to speak in Parliament. "We were never informed that the PD was against this law," he said.

Farrugia, in reply, said that it is rich for the PN to say that it was not informed of the PD's position when, in actual fact, the PD had not been informed that the law was up for discussion.