Nobody is above parliament

There is something increasingly abnormal, if not downright sinister, about the government's apparent disregard for the basic functions and protocols of parliament.

A cursory glance at the schedule currently before the House will reveal a truly impressive array of bills under discussion. These include the bill concerning Malta's contribution to the Greek bailout - currently the topic of much controversy all over Europe, and Malta is no exception - as well as the all but forgotten Whistleblower Act, now in second reading stage.

There are also various amendments to the Criminal Code, the Civil Code, the Central Bank, the Employment and Industrial Relations Act, as well as a bill to alter the set-up of the Film and Stage Classification Board, among others.

Most pertinent of all is the Budget Measures Implementation bill, also still in second reading phase (despite the fact that the budget itself was approved a full five months ago in October).

So far, so good. Clearly this is a busy time to be a Maltese parliamentarian. But on closer scrutiny the picture turns out to be rather different. For beyond all the discussion taking place in the House, the truth is that parliament has studiously (if not religiously) avoided taking a single vote on any of the abovementioned bills for months now... preferring to constantly postpone all such votes to an unspecified future date.

In fact, the last vote taken in the House was none other than the notorious vote of confidence in Gonzi's government last January: in which one government MP, Franco Debono, abstained after weeks of threatening to bring his own government down.

This effectively means that the last time parliament convened to vote on an issue, government had failed to produce a majority in the House. And while the Opposition likewise failed to overthrow the government on that occasion (for this, Debono would have had to vote with the motion, rather than abstain) the resulting situation nonetheless poses a veritable quandary for a Prime Minister who knows he cannot rely on the guaranteed backing of his own parliamentary group.

Besides, looking back at the same schedule of debates currently before parliament, one is also struck by what has been omitted from the list. Conspicuously absent is a motion of no confidence, brought forward by the Opposition, in Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici: who - to add insult to injury - is also leader of the House, and therefore the person who decides what to include in or leave out from the agenda.

In a sense, one must also admit that all this is entirely understandable, at least from the strictly narrow perspective of political party interests. One can after all appreciate why Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi is so very clearly reluctant to test the waters regarding his own government's state of health... considering that his own political survival hangs in the balance.

The same applies to Mifsud Bonnici, who has arguably even more reason to fear loss of confidence than Gonzi (Debono having loudly and consistently complained about his handling of the Justice portfolio).

But while such concerns are clearly a matter of great interest to Lawrence Gonzi and to Carm Mifsud Bonnici, they are ultimately of little or no consequence to the nation as a whole.

It seems strange to have to point this out to the leader of a party that had fought so tenaciously (and successfully) to safeguard democratic principles in the past, precisely from politicians who laboured under overbearing delusions of grandeur. But the truth is that no single politician is actually more important than the institution of parliament as a whole.

Quite the contrary: individual politicians come and go all the time, and all that remains of them when they are gone is their legacy. Parliament, on the other hand, remains... regardless of the ephemeral to-ing and fro-ing of the constituent MPs who make up its numbers.

For this same reason, 'Gonzi's political survival' alone is clearly not a good enough reason to suspend the norms of democracy... as government seems to be doing by constantly postponing parliamentary decisions. Still less is it a valid pretext to cheapen or devalue the highest institution of the land: effectively reducing it to little more than a talking shop, in which politicians debate and debate and debate, without ever actually putting their money where their mouth is and taking a decision.

Worse still, Gonzi's government now evidently lacks confidence in its own members to such a degree that it can no longer actually govern. In such circumstances, the Prime Minister would be wise to undertake a serious examination of conscience, and ask himself if his own survival is really worth the current state of parliamentary abnormality he has forced upon the country.