At the beginning of the year, civil society NGO Repubblika made several proposals regarding Parliamentary reforms, a number of which are worth considering.

One such proposal would see the President of Malta elected, rather than appointed. Another would empower the President to refer legislation to the Constitutional Court to ensure the constitutionality of legislation or to push back for reconsideration a law that has been approved by Parliament. “A second Parliamentary approval of law would be final.”

In addition to this, the NGO recommends changing how Prime Ministers are chosen. “The President appoints as Prime Minister the person they believe would be best able to form a government that would enjoy the confidence of Parliament. The President’s first preference should be to seek to fill the position of Prime Minister with a Member of Parliament. However, it should be possible for Parliamentary majorities to recommend to the President the appointment of an individual from outside Parliament to the position of Prime Minister.”

The NGO also proposes that the Prime Minister would choose, for his cabinet ministers, any citizen of Malta and, before the government is sworn in, the Prime Minister would need to secure a vote of confidence from Parliament. “Any MP that is appointed Prime Minister or Minister, is replaced in Parliament by the next candidate eligible for election by casual election according to the existing procedure for such elections.”  The Prime Minister and Ministers would be expected to attend Parliamentary debates, to participate in the debates, to reply to Parliamentary questions and to engage very much as Ministers do now. Except that they would not be entitled to vote in Parliamentary decisions.

These are just a few of many proposals Repubblika has made that would see Malta’s democracy reformed. While the proposals would have both positive and negative side effects, they are at least worthy of discussion.

For example, the decision to remove the ability for ministers to vote in Parliament, but at the same time have other MPs elected through a casual election to fill their seat, means that the party in government would not be at a disadvantage in terms of Parliamentary votes. But this will, when couples with yet another proposal made by the NGO which would ensure that MPs would not be allowed to work for the government, possibly increase the autonomy of the party and separate it from the government. This could lead to more freedom in terms of MPs votes.

Problems with the election of a President, as the NGO itself points out, would be that candidates would need to campaign and likely come from political parties, thus meaning that they might not enjoy cross-party respect.

Earlier this week Repubblika issued a statement saying that it received no reaction from the government or the Speaker of the House on the proposals.  There are pros and cons to many of the proposals the NGO put forward, but a debate on the issue should be held.