These are truly revolutionary times: here I am, guest posting in J’accuse of all places, while the owner of the blog is away.

Parliament meets this evening. On its agenda the first reading of ”Motion No. 206 – Private Members Bill – Civil Code (Amendt) Bill” which translated into the amendments proposed by Jeffrey Pullicino-Orlando and Evarist Bartolo.

For the uninitiated, a bill in Parliament goes through four stages before going to the President to be signed into law. These are the first reading, second reading, the committee stage and the third reading, with the discussion going into greater detail with each subsequent stage.

Voting can take place at every stage and in the committee stage each and every article, clause and proposal for amendment gets voted with a final generic vote in reading number three. However, voting takes place only after a division is called with the MPs voting with “ayes” or “nays”. The Speaker reports on how he thought the vote went but he can be “challenged” and MPs’ names are called, one by one, alphabetically, and their vote recorded in the debates of the House.

Drab, you might think. But this time with some MPs following the voice of the people and others following the voice of their conscience, all this becomes more important.

Tonight it’s the first reading. This is little more than voting on the name of the bill, granting leave to the publication of the first text of the bill in the Government Gazette. Usually, there’s no division and the motion is carried without as much as a nod.

Will a division be called even at this very early stage? Be here tonight at 6 p.m. for some live blogging!