The island of saints and fireworks experienced yet another tumultuous bump on its road to democratic fulfillment yesterday. By late morning you were either looking deep into your soul and trying to decipher the reason why it would still be possible for some of your co-islanders to sport (ha!) a gun and kill birds during the mating season or you were out carcading in full camouflage dress having savaged some trees to decorate your car for the occasion.
In many quarters the crux of the discussion was who to blame. Do you blame the hapless Saviour Balzan and the running of the no campaign that managed to (cliche’ warning) snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Do you blame the political party leaders who had pronounced themselves personally to the YES vote (biex nissalvagwardjaw id-deroga li innegozjajna – ugh more on that later)? Do you blame the voters in the districts where the YES vote was overwhelming? More importantly, how do we get rid of those Gozitans? Independence or boycott? Bridge zikk.
And what about the planters of hate and discord who had called the other side all sorts of names? Surely a referendum on a factual question such as it was ended up being lost or won because you really cannot ever call someone “uncivilised”.
I could only stand back in awe and watch the events unfold. I read a few opinion columns here and there and watched the infamous breakdown analysis on a few of the tv stations. The main impression is that facts, the real facts, have been thrown out of the window. Faced with the rule of law, legislation to interpret and scientific evidence we panic, we freeze like rabbits facing the headlamps of an oncoming car, and then we take solace in theatrics and cliches.
I was reminded of the hunter who accosted Simon Busuttil on the campaign trail in Rabat last election. There he was arguing that having paid I don’t remember what sum of money for a license (later to be rescinded by the Hunters’ Friend Joseph) he had the right to enjoy his “hobby” bis-shih. Busuttil replied quoting an ECJ court case where “ahna iggelidna ghalikom” (we fought for you) and won the right to keep holding a spring hunting season. That to me is the source of all the evil. Of all the misinformation.
In the beginning I thought I was being too technical. Too long-winded. To lawyerish. I must admit I got carried away by the charade and started to think that maybe just maybe I am not too well versed in the politics of electioneering and gathering votes. Maybe, just maybe, it was right for the NO campaign to ignore the issue of when and how the derogation came about, how it is supposed to be applied and how the referendum would never really end the possibility of the derogation being applied in Malta – even if the No camp won.
I was told to shut up and be careful (not that I did, but I did tone down my insistence) because that kind of information might render voters complacent and that they might abstain from what would be an ultimately rhetorical No result. It’s a mistake though. It always will be. To attempt to lead people on the basis of lie – or half truth if you will. The modern antipathy towards legal and competent interpretations of the law is also to blame. Yes it is technical. Yes it is how things work. Finding ways of explaining it to the people is the business of electoral machines – not hiding it from them.
Yes, I was guilty of claiming that the referendum result would be meaningless on a technical level. Article 9 of the Derogation that is the basis of the legal Notice that we were trying to abrogate would still exist. I was however also responsible for saying that interpreting the result this way meant that the No vote should be much much louder than a simple majority because it would be binding on both parties as representatives of the will of the people. Which in layman’s talk means that even though the door would still be open to the derogation written into the Birds’ Directive they would not have dared open it for quite a while.
I was also guilty of constantly trying to remind anyone who cared that this derogation had nothing to do with anything negotiated by Malta prior to accession. Article 9 of the Birds’ Directive exists independently of what Malta negotiated. It is a list of very strict conditions under which hunting would be allowed. In my amateur non-scientific assessment (that could be proved wrong but I doubt it) it would be very very hard for Malta to ever justify the opening of a spring hunting season under this derogation.
Which brings me to the leaders’ vote. Not that we should be caring about how they voted (the little triumph of the 49 point something per cent is that of not having followed their call).
Busuttil is the biggest disappointment. Not so much because he declared his vote in favour of the Yes camp. That was understandable because he neutralised Muscat’s hope of a double-victory and turning the vote into Muscat vs Busuttil. What disappointed me most was the justification as to why he would vote Yes. Busuttil is in fact guilty of repeating the lie that this was a vote in favour of a derogation “acquired” by a previous PN government. That, to me, amounts to misinformation.
Muscat’s position is easy to assess – until the end he remains the hunters’ friend. If you needed any confirmation you just had to look at his statements after the vote. He has done all he can to allow them to hunt – now the ball is in their court and he cannot be blamed for doing his duty and stopping them once and for all should they break the law again. He did add the term “flagrant” to violation as though there is a scale of permissibility implied.
Now to the main issue: the use of the derogation. The Times carried a constantly updated article on the day of the Yes victory. One of the statements carried was to the effect that now that the referendum had passed in favour of the Yes camp the spring hunting season would start. Automatic. For the people by the people.
The Times (and most of the fourth estate) had swallowed the lie. The main reason why we voted on Saturday was never understood. Maybe because it is too mind-numbingly technical. Maybe because we prefer arguing about what other hobbies are threatened. The point is that the referendum result is about Malta’s button that activates the request to use the derogation – not about the derogation itself. The Legal Notice empowers the Minister to evaluate whether the conditions exist for the spring hunting season to open. That should be far from automatic.
There are flaws in the system sure. The Commission – guardian of the treaties and their application – relies on information brought to it by the government of the day when it comes to overseeing the application of the derogation. When the government is in cahoots with the hunting lobby and knows that the general population cannot be bothered with a minor scandal of the killing of a few extra hundred birds (no matter how many storks and swans appear on the front page of the Times) then bob’s your uncle. Even the police are thwarted.
Malta never “won” the hunting case before the ECJ. It was a slap on the wrist telling Malta to be more careful next time. If the NO lobby does not want to die an ignoble death the next thing on the cards should not be a campaign for Birdlife memberships (to do what?) but an educational campaign on the ins and outs of the Birds Directive.
Maybe next time we can talk facts and law. And stop blaming the Gozitans.
