The House of Representatives took most of its time during Wednesday's plenary session to discuss a motion tabled by the Government. This motion (Motion 379) calls to regularise a new voting praxis for Constitutional Bills featuring clauses requiring different majorities for approval to be voted on through a clause-by-clause vote call, rather than just on the final Bill.

Presently, any proposed Constitutional Bill requires a two-thirds majority to be enacted into law. In recent weeks, Parliament has been discussing Bill 134, which relates to several aspects within the judiciary, such as raising judges' retirement age up from 68 to 70 years of age, increasing the number of judges handling constitutional cases to seven (including the Chief Justice), having the Constitutional Court be comprised of three sections (up from one), amongst others.

The motive behind Motion 379 relates to this Bill, which, according to the government, features certain clauses that do not require a two-thirds voting majority to pass, but only a simple majority of 50% of the House.

The Minister for Justice, Jonathan Attard, clarified these details when presenting this motion on Wednesday, and stated that "it does not make sense" that a clause which only requires a simple majority to be enacted does not pass because of other clauses within the same proposed Bill that require a two-thirds majority.

Justice Minister Attard added that today's discussion on this Motion was conducted due to the fundamental disagreement on this point between the two sides of the Chamber. The Opposition holds the opinion that the government's reasoning breaches the values entrenched into the Maltese Constitution.

In this regard, Attard labelled this Motion as "the only solution" it can heed for certain important amendments within this Constitutional Bill to pass, "if the Opposition - in contrast to past Oppositions, even in difficult moments - remains hard-headed and holds the country back" by stalling or blocking Bills in Parliament.

Attard said that this procedural motion is the latest example of the government's commitment to governing responsibly with full respect to the Constitution of Malta.

He declared that this motion is necessary to enhancing the country's legislative process when concerning constitutional amendments, even though the country has gone 60+ years without this proposal in place.

Karol Aquilina says Parliament is no longer democratic under this 'quasi-pirate government'

The Nationalist Party's justice spokesperson, Karol Aquilina, made serious remarks against the incumbent administration while discussing this Motion. Aquilina said that this presented Motion is the first procedural motion, in his memory, to have been put forward for a particular Bill to pass "at all costs."

He described that through this Motion, the government is looking to "bend the rules of our Constitution" so that, at the very least, certain clause it favours will pass via simple majority.

"Many procedural motions have been passed in Parliament, though I have never heard of a procedural motion that has been put forward for a particular Bill, and for the government to bend the rules of our Constitution so that its Bill passes at all costs," Aquilina said.

This comes within the context that in late May, the Opposition declared that it intends to vote against the enactment of Bill 134 - this declaration saw the Prime Minister, Justice Minister Attard, and former Justice Minister Owen Bonnici slam the Opposition in reaction.

Prime Minister Robert Abela had noted that "there is no justified reason" not to vote in favour of the proposed constitutional amendments aside for "political revenge, because we are not bending the knee towards what the Opposition wants." Meanwhile, Bonnici had said that outgoing Opposition leader Bernard Grech presented no "credible" arguments behind this stance, and went as far to say that the PN parliamentary group intends to vote against these judicial constitutional amendments for "stupid reasons." Justice Minister Attard had observed that the Opposition was standing "on the wrong side of history" for "holding the government hostage" in demanding that it enacts what it wants or nothing gets passed.

Aquilina appealed for all MPs not to be complicit in what he interprets as this "distortion" of the Maltese Constitution, arguing that doing so would be "very dangerous."

He continued that this Motion is yet another step taken by the incumbent government to further fragment Parliament and "for the rights of the Opposition to be diminished even further."

Aquilina said that "we are living a democratic lie" and that "it is not true that Parliament is democratic."

"[Parliament] has become a tool for this government to do as it likes," Aquilina criticised.

Within this context, he stated that "the virtue of doing things right has been lost" under the control of Abela's "quasi-pirate government." He sustained that doing things properly no longer interests this government, nor does holding dialogue, or doing things according to the letter of the law.

PN's justice spokesperson described that under Justice Minister Jonathan Attard and the rest of the incumbent administration, any sense of dialogue between the two parliamentary groups no longer exists as it once used to. Aquilina recounted that once upon a time, both sides shared a healthy habit to have proper dialogue when discussing constitutional amendments, and that this historically always helped both sides reach some sort of compromise and understanding.

However, on this occasion, "the government did not want to hold any dialogue" and presented the Bill to the Opposition with just a few days' notice. He added that for a reason unknown to him, the government wishes to pass these constitutional amendments by 30 June.

Aquilina said that the PN disagrees with the government's proposal for these constitutional amendments to be voted upon clause-by-clause; citing the Constitution, he believes that voting on Bill 134 as Motion 379 dictates would ironically violate the Constitution.

He described that the Constitution is clear in referring to voting on a Bill as a whole and not on its individual clauses. Additionally, he said that the presented Motion does not call for a final vote on the full Constitutional Bill.

"It is clear that this motion is changing rules in a way where our Constitution is different to what is being described in this Motion, and we are creating clear uncertainty on the Constitution of Malta, and this is not right," Aquilina said, "We must do things while abiding by the Constitution of Malta, and not by bending rules so that things superficially appear to be according to standard."

Aquilina concluded his intervention by appealing for both sides of the Chamber to meet and discuss Bill 134 appropriately and maturely. He said that the Opposition hopes for a Bill that benefits everyone, and not just one side of the House. While calling for both parliamentary groups to discuss these judicial and constitutional amendments, Aquilina pleaded for this Motion to be rescinded.

Following Aquilina's speech, Justice Minister Attard denied that the government never contacted the Opposition to discuss these constitutional amendments. According to him, the government consulted the Opposition before the Act was even published.

He also accused the PN of taking up the same stance as the NGO Repubblika, which he once again referred to as an extremist faction of the Nationalist Party.

Attard stated that the country does not have "a serious Opposition" and that it should vote in favour of these amendments - some of which were proposed by members of the judiciary themselves.

Speaking in favour of this Motion a final time, he said that voting clause-by-clause will reveal the PN's true intentions, as during the final voting stage, the country will observe whether or not it will vote against much needed changes, such as increasing the retirement age of judges by two years, so as not to force motivated judges to retire as court backlogs are feared to spike with the departure of several top members of our judiciary.