The system whereby a two-third majority in Parliament is needed to appoint a Chief Justice has put Malta in a "strait jacket", former Labour Prime Minister Alfred Sant writes today.

"As was to be expected," Sant writes in his bi-weekly blog on The Malta Independent, this system "is turning out to be a washout".

"It was nothing better than a trap by which to create senseless political crises which only serve to damage the country's institutions," he writes.

Saying it was introduced to "look good" with the Europeans, Sant writes that Malta  introduced "a method that time after time, will push all sides into an impasse, without any fall back option to enable exit, except by a 'universal' agreement that becomes extremely difficult to achieve.

Sant was referring to the impasse regarding the appointment of the new Chief Justice after incumbent Mark Chetcuti reached retirement age. A motion presented by the government to appoint Judge Consuelo Scerri Herrera was defeated as the Opposition voted against, meaning that the two-thirds agreement required was not reached.

Prime Minister Robert Abela and Opposition Leader Alex Borg have since held one meeting to discuss the way forward but no agreement has as yet been announced.

Read Alfred Sant's blog here