The project to give Malta a new parliament building is still in the pipeline. Only recently we learnt that the Piano design has been amended to set MP’s seats in facing rows rather than in a horseshoe formation. The underlying assumption is clear – that our democracy will always take the form it has today.
Small and symbolic as this change may seem, it expresses the will of the present government to preserve the status quo, to prevent change and development. It assumes that there will always be two parties in our parliament, and that majorities will always be small. It seems to assume that parliament as an institution has ossified altogether.
Going by the complaints of parliamentarians that they are not given the time and opportunity to scrutinise legislation before they are asked to vote upon it, the seating arrangement seems to confirm the government’s attitude of grudging tolerance to the institution.
In our political culture the winner of a General Election takes all, forms the Government and can rule unimpeded by parliament for five years. As long as the Prime Minister can secure a majority in the House, debate becomes a required ritual but conclusions are made before a Bill is drawn up let alone discussed in Parliament.
This is what we are used to and we tend to believe that this is what happens everywhere. In fact ours is the only parliament in Europe that hosts just two political parties, almost the only one that has acclimatised completely to the idea of single party governments.
Our MEPs travelling to Brussels encounter an alien culture not only because the European Parliament has no majority forming a government but because the vast majority of its members come from multi-party democracies with multi-party governments.
At every election, pre- or post-electoral alliances are formed. Every voter knows that every electoral programme is subject to being renegotiated to form a programme of government as the coalition takes shape on the basis of the reshuffle brought about by the election.
Every coalition government is doubly constrained by its constitution, its own programme and the coalition programme. No doubt there is as much pushing against the envelope as we witness in Malta but what we have missing is the constant danger of a part of that coalition becoming detached and requiring the formation of a new government or the calling of fresh elections. There is far less rigidity in those systems than there is in ours, far less rigidity and far greater accountability.
It could well be that the shared sovereignty of EU membership makes rubberstamps of national parliaments in matters on which the EU can legislate but the reality of a parliament remains. It is a country’s watchdog scrutinising the government’s policy and practice apart from dissecting every bit of legislation proposed.
These functions exist also in ours but the underlying threat, the tension between the executive and the legislative is largely neutralised. Parliament does not seem to have a separate existence. It seems to be the captive of the government of the day.
Alfred Sant’s complaints about the hamstringing of parliament by packing its budget agenda or by relegating major issues to Select Committees is may be all too true but no long term remedy can be expected to come from Parliament itself.
As long as parliament poses no threat to the government, it can be expected to continue to decline. Its own rigidity, the starkly drawn lines preventing exchange and traffic, the unanswerable arithmetic of just two parties, render Government largely unaccountable. The drama and spectacle of past eruptions including a long boycott by the opposition of the time only underscore the fact. Our governments can take matters to the extreme and remain unaccountable. A clever government will aim for the same ends avoiding the spectacle.
Every government will attempt to defeat or defuse parliament. It is simply too much to expect the government to arm a parliament against itself. The statesmanship, the profound democratic belief and long term vision required is simply not available in an age of sound bites and Youtube clips. The plaintive laments of the opposition fall on the ears of a population already expecting almost nothing at all from its parliament. We are not shocked to learn that our parliament has become largely ceremonial. We do not relate to it as a parliament because government after government has confirmed the absorbtion of the legislative into the executive to form il-Gvern which is the be all and end all of Maltese politics overshadowing the never-mentioned State itself.
Ironically the inability of a 65 seat parliament to effectively scrutinise the tsunami of legislation before it only adds to the magnitude of the Government in the public mind. The opposition all too easily becomes a yapping nuisance and no more, revolting government backbenchers, the entertainment of a week or two at most. Parliament has no power to regain its relevance.
Only a truly dramatic collapse can force us to return to first principles and a proper separation of powers in this Maltese Republic. It may happen tomorrow or not at all.
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