The list of speakers for tomorrow’s Civil Society Demonstration has been published and readers by now will have noticed that I am one of them. I have seen comments directed at me both on the Times and Independent articles on the event. According to one commentator I was an obvious choice because I wrote “against the PL” prior to 2013. Another commentator was convinced that my time served as president of the university student’s union was served in the capacity of a PN representative.
To be fair, that was just about it. Not much fodder it seems. Which probably means that I am sufficiently of an unknown factor to pass the grade of most suspicious observers. I could answer both the comments stating firstly that I have written “against the PL” both before and after 2013. My track record is such that my writings took me “against the PN” often too – especially when the PN deserved more scrutiny as the party in government. Luckily I have 12 years of blogging to back my claims.
As for my time in KSU – the allegation is risible to say the least. My time spent both in SDM and in KSU was at the service of students and the student community. I proudly state that together with my colleagues of the time I was responsible for a (albeit temporary) rift between the SDM and the Nationalist Party. The reason is simple – I did not take kindly to being dictated how to do politics for a party’s sake.
This is not an apologia for my past or for my credentials to address tomorrow’s crowd. This is more of a look at why I believe that the kind of activism that is developing in and around the current crisis is perforce a non-partisan one. The wider aims and goals of the civil society that has begun to stir go beyond the immediate demands made by the Civil Society Network. The fundamental aim is constitutional reform. Constitutional reform that is radical and has to be so.
Such Constitutional Reform must be party-free. Understand this. Party-free not party neutral. The thinking outside the box begins at that point. We have had a constitutional system that developed around and at the service of two parties. I have repeated this notion ad nauseam. The reason for the institutional rot is also because there is a limit to how much you can bend and twist the rules to serve two masters. The reason for institutional rot is not to be placed at the foot of one party or another. There is no measure that can blame one party more than the other. The reason must be placed squarely at the feet of both parties. Yes. The PLPN.
So think outside the box we must. The movement must become a constitutional movement. The proposals of what a new Malta should look like will be manifold. Already there are disagreements among proponents as to which system will be better however there is one crucial matter that must be remembered: the discourse has been brought to the forefront of the national agenda.
Before the election I founded the Advocates for the Rule of Law together with some colleagues of mine. Our aim was to highlight the deficit of rule of law that was becoming increasingly obvious. Yes, it became increasingly obvious under Labour’s watch but be careful, the problem was rooted much much earlier. Here is a snippet from a blog post (and from my Independent on Sunday column at the time) in March 2010: what many would call less suspicious times:
“All three branches of the state are currently under heavy attack and the levels of trust that “the people” seem to have in the administrative, executive and the judiciary appear to be alarmingly low. This is not healthy for our democracy – it’s a rot that is setting in. The rot must be exposed, not in a partisan, self-interested kind of way but rather in an objective attempt at rediscovering what we want for the future of our nation.”
I reread my posts over the years since 2005 and to me it sounds like a broken record. Not – as an observer on Daphne’s blog observed tauntingly very recently – the broken clock that is right twice a day. No, this was a constant consistent message. Over the years I and other like-minded individuals explored possibilities for constitutional change. We believed that the change should start from the house of representatives. Transforming it into a truly representative institution would mean proportional representation and having a clear cut separation from the executive. It did not make sense to have a third of parliament sitting in the cabinet.
The discourse of reform needed a crisis to be kicked off. Sadly the crisis took the ugliest form that one would never have wished for – the death of a vociferous journalist. The agenda of reform that had been hinted at mildly during Panamagate and its aftermath was now catapulted to the forefront. The Advocates for the Rule of Law (AFTROL) had managed to put the words on the nations mouth: Rule of Law. The discussion had remained at a technical level and the election had pummelled a people into silence.
The new crisis has brought the discussion back with a vengeance. What needs to be understood is that this is not about asking Joseph Muscat to resign. It is not about advocating or pushing for the usual alternation. It is much deeper than that. The nation desperately needs the reform for its own good. Citizens need to understand that so long as they pin their hopes on the partisan assessment of politics then all hope is lost. The two political parties will always be in survival mode. It is parallel to their need to be in power to make the system work to their advantage. The rules must stay the same – even if they will pay lip service to constitutional reform.
Now more than ever it is imperative that we are not partisan. The part I don’t take is the part in part-isan. It is imperative that we begin to understand that the Civil Society Movement must establish itself with even higher standards than the temporary ones that are being asked for right now. Constitutional reform must come from the heart of the nation. From its sovereign. We the people.
I am not partisan. I don’t need to be and cannot be. My duty as a civil activist is to fight for constitutional change that brings about the proper reforms. That brings about the rule of law.
We are servants of the law so that we may be free.
