When George Abela was proclaimed President of the Republic, among his first public commitments was to unite the people of Malta and Gozo.
Dr Abela is arguably the best-placed person for this particular job. For one thing he is a rarity in Maltese politics: a Labour exponent who enjoys enormous respect even among Nationalist supporters. For another, his vast experience in trade union and social issues places him in a unique position to appraise and ultimately address the most immediate of our many national divisions .
In fact his very nomination last January represented an important step towards national reconciliation. After all, the decision to nominate a former deputy leader of the party in Opposition was a first of its kind for Malta: a fact which has been acknowledged by the PL, resulting in arguably the first non-controversial celebration of a President’s appointment in recent history.
But it remains to be seen whether Dr George Abela will address the real manifestations of national division in our country. For among the President of Malta’s many titles is that of custodian of the Constitution: and there are few aspects where the Constitution of Malta is more visibly ignored and demeaned in our country, than the abysmal state of broadcasting.
In Section 119, the Constitution of Malta states that: “It shall be the function of the Broadcasting Authority to ensure that, so far as possible, in such sound and television broadcasting services as may be provided in Malta, due impartiality is preserved in respect of matters of political or industrial controversy or relating to current public policy and that broadcasting facilities and time are fairly apportioned between persons belonging to different political parties.”
The above quotation clearly refers to all broadcasting services, and by no stretch of the imagination can the text be made to apply to some stations to the exclusion of others. And yet, we have somehow managed to distort the above law precisely to absolve political parties of their Constitutional obligations as broadcasters in their own right.
It is already bad enough that political parties were permitted to own their own stations in the first place: a situation which makes us unique in the European Union. But this is the least of the problems associated with broadcasting in Malta. For in a shocking dereliction of its Constitutional obligations, the Broadcasting Authority – whose membersare appointed by Parliament, which in turn is occupied by the same two political parties which are also station owners in their own right – took the remarkable decision to simply not apply section 119 to politically owned stations.
The official justification was that, by allowing each station complete liberty to transmit political propaganda at will, their output would somehow “balance each other out”.
It is difficult to see any logic in this statement. By the same reasoning, should a newspaper libel a particular person, that person should have no recourse to remedial action if he himself is at liberty to libel the newspaper in return.
Even a child would see that this is tantamount to a “free for all” scenario. And yet, that is precisely the logic applied by Broadcasting Authority in this case.
There are other issues involved, too: not least, the negative impact the scenario has had on the commercial playing field. Regular BA audience surveys reveal that one of the two politically-owned stations, NET TV, has consistently seen its audience share diminish in recent years. And yet, its advertising market share has remained more or less constant – comparable to that of stations with far larger audiences than its own.
One is free to interpret the above observation as one sees fit: whichever explanation you choose, however, it remains a clear symptom of market distortion.
Yet another issue involves double standards applied by the BA to other stations: in particular PBS, which has had so many conditions imposed on its political broadcasts that it can scarcely even perform its public functions as a news medium.
Above all, however, this Constitutional anomaly has allowed NET and One TV to get away with remarkable excesses: anything from the harassment of public figures, to a ludicrous style of selective reporting that makes one wonder if the two channels are even referring to the same country when they report the “news”.
As custodian of the Constitution of Malta, the problem of broadcasting is also the President’s problem. If Dr Abela is to seriously deliver on his pledge to bring about reconciliation, it is difficult to conceive of a better place to start. And unlike his predecessors, he already has the advantage of enjoying the trust of both government and opposition.
Indeed it is hard to imagine a person more eminently qualified to resolve this issue than President George Abela. One sincerely hopes, therefore, that he will draw on his consderable talents to resolve the issue once and for all.
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