The delay in the signing of the IVF law has put Malta “at the unfortunate situation where the Constitution ends up serving the President not the President serving the Constitution,” the former dean of the Faculty of Laws at the University of Malta writes today.

In an opinion piece on The Malta Independent today, Prof. Kevin Aquilina writes that “if the President has a conscious problem to sign the bill, and he is entitled to fully exercise his freedom of conscience, then he should have resigned forthwith as other state leaders have done abroad when faced with such situations and not pass on the buck to somebody else.”

Parliament approved the bill before it rose for the summer recess in the first week of July. “The Constitution of Malta has a provision that states that the President has to assent to bills ‘without delay’,” but till now no such signature has arrived.

President George Vella has repeatedly said that the bill will be signed, but he has not been drawn into saying by whom.

“It is also now becoming clear why the Prime Minister unilaterally, with due haste, and without the consent of the Opposition, had Dolores Cristina removed from Acting President for he might have sensed that if the President refused to sign the IVF bill, Acting President Dolores Cristina – also on the basis of conscience – might have followed suit and then the Prime Minister would have ended up with egg on his face,” Aquilina wrote.

See full article here