Updated | Labour slams parliament’s four week Easter recess

Addressing a press conference outside Parliament House, Labour deputy leader for parliamentary affairs Anglu Farrugia and parliamentary whip Joe Mizzi expressed dismay at the long recess, and said that the decision was taken without any consultation with the Opposition.

Yesterday evening, parliament was adjourned for Monday 23 April, as the House decided to take 25 days for its Easter break.

Anglu Farrugia said that government's decision to take a "four week holiday" means that nothing will be don e to address the country's problems.

"The four week holiday also means that parliament will not have taken a vote on anything for more than three months, since the last vote was taken on 26 January when a vote of no-confidence was tabled by the opposition," Farrugia said.

He added that the press conference was held "in protest for the way parliament is being treated" and described the situation as "scandalous."

Farrugia also lambasted the Leader of the House and Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici, for postponing the debate on the motion tabled by the opposition in regards to justice and home affairs. He said that Carm Mifsud Bonnici has a conflict of interest combining his roles as Home Affairs minister and leader of the house.

"Instead of taking heed of the Opposition leader Joseph Muscat's calls to resign temporarily as leader of the house in order to discuss the Opposition's motion freely, Mifsud Bonnici did not even have the decency to convene the House Business committee to discuss parliament's recess and the agenda with the Opposition," the PL deputy leader said.

Labour's parliamentary whip, Joe Mizzi said that this is the first time ever since 1989 that the House Business committee did not meet to discuss and agree on parliament's recess and the agenda.

 Mizzi explained that normally parliament takes a two week break for Easter and said that government's actions in parliament are "protracting the instability the government brought on itself."

He added that the government is dragging its feet to remain in power, instead of resolving the matter once and for all in the country's best interest."

Mizzi said that Tonio Borg had given his word that the House would have taken a vote on the Opposition's motion on justice and home affairs before the end of last January. "That decision was a binding agreement which Mifsud Bonnici threw out," he said.

"The GonziPN government is putting its partisan interests ahead of anything else to the detriment of democracy and the whole country," Mizzi said.

Asked whether the Opposition intends to table a motion of no-confidence in the government, Anglu Farrugia said "at the moment the most important thing at the moment is to take a vote on one of the 14 pending bills."